Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI announced Tuesday it raised $20 ‍billion ‍in an upsized Series E funding round, ​exceeding its $15 billion target as it ramps ⁠up development of new AI models and computing ⁠infrastructure.

Valor Equity Partners, ‌StepStone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company and Qatar Investment Authority ⁠participated in the round, xAI said.

Nvidia and Cisco Investments joined as strategic investors, and xAI said their backing would help ⁠it expand computing capacity.

When contacted ​by Reuters for comment by email, xAI replied with the ‍message, 'Legacy Media Lies.' 

xAI, which is training its next-generation ​Grok 5 model, said it will use the new money to build infrastructure, speed development and deployment of AI products, and fund research.

Investor demand for AI deals has stayed strong despite warnings of a bubble, as companies spend heavily on computing power and new ⁠models.

xAI has rapidly expanded its ‌data-center footprint to train more advanced systems as it tries to close the ‌gap ⁠with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Alphabet's Gemini.

(Reporting by Prakhar Srivastava ⁠in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)