On January 3rd, local time, $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ CEO Musk announced that xAI's next generation AI model Grok 3 is about to be released, with its pre-training already completed and a computational power ten times greater than Grok 2. Prior to this, discussions about Grok 3's 'delay' had sparked heated debates, as Grok 3 was originally planned for release by the end of 2024.

At the same time, major news has emerged from global AI giants.$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$From January 7th to 10th local time, the 2025 International Consumer Electronics Show (referred to as CES 2025) will kick off in Las Vegas, USA. Bank of America Analyst Vivek Arya expects NVIDIA to officially announce its entry into the AI PC market at the event.

CES has always been a key highlight in the global technology sector, often referred to as the 'Technology Spring Festival Gala.' Analysts suggest that innovations in AI applications may take center stage at CES 2025, with AI glasses expected to be one of the focal points, as several manufacturers will showcase the latest AI glasses products, igniting a 'battle of a hundred glasses.'

Musk announced

On January 3 local time, the world's richest person and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the next generation AI model Grok 3 from xAI is about to be launched, with its pre-training already completed and a computing power 10 times greater than Grok 2.

Musk's announcement of Grok 3 has triggered significant attention in the global AI field. Some analysts suggest that this achievement may become another important milestone in the development of AI worldwide.

Grok 3 is seen as a competitor to OpenAI's latest flagship model O3. Musk previously stated, "Grok 3 should be the most powerful AI in the world."

It is worth mentioning that prior to this, the topic of Grok 3 being "delayed" sparked heated discussions. As early as the summer of 2024, Musk mentioned that xAI's next generation AI model Grok 3 would be trained on 0.1 million H100 GPUs and is set to be launched by the end of 2024, and the Grok 3 chatbot "will be very special."

Some analysts suggest that the relatively small size of the xAI team could be one of the reasons for the delay in Grok 3's release.

Currently, the large model that xAI has launched is Grok 2, which possesses advanced reasoning capabilities, with overall performance exceeding GPT-4o. On December 14, 2024, xAI announced a free release of the new version of the Grok-2 model to all platform users. As before, Premium and Premium + users will receive higher usage limits and will have priority access to any new features in the future.

On December 23 last year, xAI announced that it raised $6 billion in its Series C financing (approximately 43.8 billion yuan), with investors including A16Z, Blackrock, and strategic investors NVIDIA and Advanced Micro Devices also participating, continuing to support xAI's rapid infrastructure expansion. In this round of financing, xAI's valuation has already exceeded $40 billion (approximately 290 billion yuan).

Their official website indicates that this financing will be used to further accelerate their infrastructure, launch breakthrough products that will be used by billions of people and accelerate the research and development of future technologies to achieve the company's mission of understanding the true nature of the universe.

Big news from NVIDIA.

From January 7 to 10 local time, the 2025 International Consumer Electronics Show (hereinafter referred to as CES 2025) will kick off in Las Vegas, USA. Since its inception in 1967, CES has been a highlight of the technology field, often referred to as the 'Spring Festival Gala of Technology.'

This four-day exhibition is expected to attract over 0.13 million participants globally, with more than 4,800 companies exhibiting, including 323 Fortune 500 companies. The number of exhibitors from China will exceed 1,300, reaching a record high, with companies such as Lenovo, TCL, and Hisense in attendance.

This year at CES, AI will surely take center stage, NVIDIA, $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ and $Intel (INTC.US)$ It is expected to launch a series of new products.

At 6:30 PM local time on January 6, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote speech on site. At that time, NVIDIA may officially launch the new generation GeForce RTX50 series graphics cards, including RTX5090, 5080, and 5060. According to media reports from Tom's Hardware and others, the RTX5080 graphics card is expected to officially hit the market on January 21.

Bank of America Analyst Vivek Arya expects NVIDIA to officially announce its entry into the AI PC market at the exhibition. Previously, there were reports indicating that NVIDIA is collaborating with MediaTek to develop Arm processors aimed at client PCs. The first product from both parties will adopt$Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM.US)$TSMC's 3nm process manufacturing and will apply CoWoS packaging, with the ultimate goal of entering the high-end laptop market.

On the same day in the morning, Intel and AMD will successively hold new product launch events. From the timing perspective, Intel is ahead of AMD and NVIDIA, and foreign media believe that Intel aims to seize the opportunity and reserve ample time for partners to showcase new products.

Media speculates that Intel is expected to release multiple new products, including: Core Ultra 200H/HX processors (Arrow Lake mobile version), Core Ultra 200S (Arrow Lake 35W/65W desktop), as well as mid-range and workstation 800 series desktop processors. Intel executive Michelle Johnston Holthaus revealed that Arrow Lake is a PC processor with AI capabilities. This will be an important layout for Intel's future development in the PC field.

Another 'C position'.

Another analysis suggests that AI application innovations on the edge may become another 'C position' at CES 2025, where AI glasses will be one of the highlights of the exhibition, with multiple manufacturers showcasing the latest AI eyewear products, igniting a 'battle of a hundred glasses'.

Recently, the AI glasses Industry Chain has been very active. Thunderbird Innovation and Alibaba Cloud announced a deep strategic partnership in the field of AI glasses, with the Tongyi series large model providing exclusive customized technical support for Thunderbird Innovation's AI glasses. This is the first deep customization collaboration by a domestic large model manufacturer aimed at eyewear products.

$Sony Group (6758.JP)$A preview video for CES 2025 has been released on the American video site YouTube, featuring a glimpse of a Smart Phone and a smart pen used for spatial painting, hinting that Sony may showcase related new products during CES.

In addition, Dapeng VR,$Vuzix (VUZI.US)$and many other technology companies will also showcase their latest AI eyewear products at CES. Recent application download data shows that the download volume of the Meta smart glasses MetaView's accompanying application has surged over 200% recently, demonstrating the market's eager expectations for AI glasses.

Industry predictions suggest that with the rapid development of AI technology, AI glasses are expected to become the next significant mobile terminal entry point after Smart Phones, with a broad market outlook, and 2025 is anticipated to be the inaugural year for AI glasses.

According to wellsennXR data and forecasts, starting in 2025, AI smart glasses will quickly penetrate traditional eyewear sales against the backdrop of stable growth. IDC predicts that the global penetration rate of AI glasses will reach 20% by 2030.

CITIC SEC Research Reports indicate that the short-term shipments of AI glasses are still relatively low, estimating that the global shipment volume of AI glasses will be about 3 million pairs in 2024, and around 10 million pairs in 2025. Therefore, the year when the supply chain's performance will be released may be as early as 2026. Currently, the AI glasses Sector is still in the Thematic Investment phase. If important manufacturers release blockbuster key products subsequently, it is expected to drive the shift from Thematic Investment to Fundamental Investment.

Editor/Somer