Musk's new secret weapon? IIT Bombay alum Devendra Chaplot joins xAI & SpaceX to build 'superintelligence'
IIT Bombay alumnus Devendra Chaplot has joined Elon Musk's xAI and SpaceX founding teams to build "superintelligence." With a PhD from CMU and experience at Mistral and Meta, Chaplot aims to bridge the gap between digital AI and physical robotics.
by Zee Media Bureau · Zee NewsIn a significant talent acquisition coup for his newly merged technology group, Elon Musk has now welcomed Indian AI researcher Devendra Singh Chaplot to the founding teams of xAI and SpaceX.
The announcement was made on Saturday, March 14. This move is a significant step towards Elon Musk's vision of achieving "superintelligence" by bridging the gap between digital AI and physical robotics. Chaplot will now directly report to Elon Musk in his new role.
The vision: Merging digital and physical intelligence
Devendra Chaplot announced his new role through a popular tweet on X (formerly Twitter), in which he shared a picture with Elon Musk. He also mentioned how the recent merger of all of Elon Musk's ventures in aerospace technology and AI had given birth to a unique synergy.
"Together SpaceX and xAI combine physical and digital intelligence under a leader who understands hardware at the deepest level. Add a high-agency culture with frontier-scale resources, and you get the possibility to achieve something truly unique."
Elon Musk quickly replied to this tweet by posting: "Welcome to @xAI!"
A seasoned architect of frontier AI
Devendra Chaplot joins xAI with a solid background in product development:
Mistral AI: As a co-founder of the French AI unicorn, Chaplot played a key role in the training of Mistral 7B, Mixtral 8x7B, and Mistral Large. He also headed the multimodal group for the Pixtral 12B project.
Thinking Machines Lab (TML): Prior to joining Musk, Chaplot was a member of the founding team of the AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab, headed by former CTO of OpenAI, Mira Murati.
Facebook AI Research (FAIR): Chaplot worked as a research scientist for five years, winning several international competitions for embodied AI and robotics, including the CVPR PointNav and ObjectNav competitions.
Academic roots: From IIT Bombay to Carnegie Mellon University
Chaplot, a native of India, started his journey as the All India Rank 25 holder of the IIT-JEE 2010.
IIT Bombay: Chaplot completed his B. Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering (2010-2014).
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU): Chaplot specialised in Language Technologies and Machine Learning, completing a Master’s and a PhD.
Strategic context: The SpaceX-xAI merger
The hiring of Chaplot by Musk comes at a time when the billionaire entrepreneur confirmed the merger between SpaceX and xAI. This merger, analysts say, would enable the two companies to overcome the “terrestrial power wall” by moving AI data centers to orbit and using SpaceX’s Starlink and Starship to power the next generation of superintelligence.
Chaplot, being the expert in the field of embodied AI, would play a crucial role in the merger by integrating the "Grok" AI model of xAI and the Tesla Optimus robot.