In August, Elon Musk’s xAI promised to make Grok, the company’s flagship generative AI model powering a number of features on X, available via an API. Now, that API has arrived — albeit a bit bare-bones at the moment.
The xAI API only has a single model, “grok-beta,” priced at $5 per million input tokens (~750,000 words) or $15 per million output tokens. Tokens are subdivided bits of raw data, like the syllables “fan,” “tas,” and “tic” in the word “fantastic.”
It’s unclear which Grok model “grok-beta” might be; Grok 2 is the very latest on X. The documentation for the API refers to Grok 2 and Grok mini, a lightweight and more affordable version of Grok — so it could well be a technical issue.
The xAI API supports function calling, which connects Grok models to external tools such as databases and search engines. And, although they don’t appear to be live yet, the documentation hints at vision models capable of analyzing both text and images.
Musk said this summer that xAI is training the next generation of Grok models at its Memphis datacenter, which has been accused by Memphis officials of worsening smog with unauthorized gas turbines. The company hopes to upgrade the datacenter next year, but will need approval from the Tennessee Valley Authority in order to do so.
In May, xAI raised $6 billion in a funding round led by investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, and Fidelity.
