Investing.com-- Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI launched an updated version of its flagship AI model, Grok 4, in a livestream on Wednesday evening.

Musk and his xAI team showcased the new model in a livestream that began roughly an hour past schedule, with the new model sporting multimodal features, faster reasoning, an upgraded interface, and improved voice communication.

xAI said that Grok ranked well ahead of current competitors such as GPT-03 and Gemini 2.5 pro on major benchmarks.

Musk claimed that Grok 4 was “better than PHD levels in every subject. No exceptions.”

The release came amid a growing scandal over apparently racist and pro-Nazi responses from Grok’s earlier versions, with the model recently seen spontaneously praising Adolf Hitler on an unrelated query.

Musk, who founded xAI in 2023, said that Grok 4 was the company’s most advanced model yet. The new version is set to compete with OpenAI’s upcoming GPT-5 and Anthropic’s Claude 4 Opus.

xAI surged to a valuation of around $80 billion after a recent funding round and merger with social media platform X. The company currently operates what it claims is the world’s largest supercomputer, Colossus, in Memphis, Tennessee, with its computing power being largely dedicated towards running its AI programs.