“Elon Musk is literally painting MACROHARD on the ceiling of his supercomputer cluster, Colossus II, in Memphis. Here’s what it will look like…” The message in
Macrohard, behind the play on words…
But what is Macrohard? Macrohard is a new project from xAI, Elon Musk’s structure dedicated to artificial intelligence. More than a simple project, it is the ambition to achieve the creation of a company that “will be able to do everything except directly produce physical objects,” explains the man who also wants to launch Grokipedia, an alternative to Wikipedia generated entirely by AI.
The name “Macrohard” is, therefore, a “naughty” provocation towards Microsoft, which plays with the linguistic opposition between “macro” and “micro”, as well as between “hard” and “soft”. But as the richest man in the world points out, “if the name is ironic, the project is very real.”
Its goal is to revolutionize the software industry by completely automating the development and management of software products. With an additional objective, to compete with Microsoft, in particular by creating similar software, but developed and managed solely by AI agents collaborating with each other. Thus, Elon Musk would consider replacing Windows, Microsoft’s operating system, with an army of AI agents. An obviously extremely complex task, but one that does not seem to discourage the head of xAI. “Since software companies, like Microsoft, don’t make anything physical themselves, it should be possible to simulate it” using AI, he writes in X.
“Deep impact on an immense scale”
In a post published on Sunday on his social platform, Elon Musk reiterated his ambition to develop an artificial intelligence system capable of automating large-scale software development and orchestration, drawing inspiration from an approach similar to Apple’s in iPhone manufacturing. He also said that “xAI’s MACROHARD project will have a profound impact on an immense scale.”
This project is based on Colossus II in Memphis, the world’s largest AI cluster, powered by millions of Nvidia processors. In fact, this site was the first to provide computing capacity requiring 1 gigawatt of electrical power. More than a data center, it is therefore a computing center, what Jensen Huang prefers to call “AI factories”, from now on. During the inaugural GTC conference in Paris, on the sidelines of Vivatech, the Nvidia boss explained that this name is more appropriate because it does not store data but rather computing power to train and execute artificial intelligence. Colossus II could thus help revolutionize industries by facilitating rapid prototyping and workflow automation, without requiring direct hardware manufacturing.
Recruiting to advance this project has already begun: Yuhuai “Tony” Wu, engineer and co-founder of xAI, announced on Twitter that they are recruiting a new team to develop computer control agents, with a view to working on Grok5 and Macrohard later this year, making the billionaire’s ambitions a reality.
Rivalry with Bill Gates
Musk’s frontal attack against Microsoft takes on all its weight when placed in the context of the historical rivalry he maintains with Bill Gates, founder of the American firm.
Verbal jousting between the two men is frequent. Bill Gates did not hesitate to express his reservations about Elon Musk’s growing influence in American decision-making circles. During a recent speech, the former Microsoft boss bluntly criticized his rival, accusing him of having contributed to a brutal reduction in humanitarian aid from the United States.
For his part, Musk responded with a speech, calling Gates a “billionaire in search of redemption” who is trying to buy a conscience after building his fortune from the digital dependence of the most vulnerable.
Source: BFM TV
