xAI Acquires AI Video Startup Hotshot to Compete with OpenAI’s Sora
Elon Musk’s xAI acquires Hotshot, an AI video startup, to rival OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo 2.
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xAI Acquires AI Video Startup Hotshot to Compete with OpenAI’s Sora
Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has acquired Hotshot, a startup working on AI-powered video generation tools along the lines of OpenAI’s Sora. Image:Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images Aakash Sastry, Hotshot’s CEO and co-founder, announced the news in a post on X on Monday. “Over the past 2 years we’ve built 3 video foundation models as a small team — Hotshot-XL, Hotshot Act One, and Hotshot,” Sastry wrote. “Training these models has given us a look into how global education, entertainment, communication, and productivity are about to change in the coming years. We’re excited to continue scaling these efforts on the largest cluster in the world, Colossus, as a part of xAI!” Hotshot, which is based in San Francisco, was founded several years ago by Sastry and John Mullan. The startup initially focused on developing AI-powered photo creation and editing tools, but eventually pivoted in favor of text-to-video AI models. Over the past 2 years we’ve built 3 video foundation models…
