July 31 (Reuters) - Elon Musk's xAI on Thursday said it

will sign a chapter on safety and security from the European

Union's code of practice, which aims to help companies comply

with the bloc's landmark artificial intelligence rules.

Signing up to the code, which was drawn up by 13 independent

experts, is voluntary, and companies that decline to do so will

not benefit from the legal certainty provided to a signatory.

The EU's code has three chapters - transparency, copyright

and safety and security.

While the guidance on transparency and copyright will apply

to all general-purpose AI providers, the chapters on safety and

security target providers of the most advanced models.

"xAI supports AI safety and will be signing the EU AI Act's

Code of Practice Chapter on Safety and Security. While the AI

Act and the Code have a portion that promotes AI safety, its

other parts contain requirements that are profoundly detrimental

to innovation and its copyright provisions are clearly (an)

over-reach," xAI said in a post on X.

The company did not respond to a request outside regular

business hours for comment on whether it plans to sign the other

two chapters of the code.

Alphabet's Google has previously said it would

sign the code of practice, while Microsoft's ( MSFT ) President

Brad Smith has said that the company would likely sign it.

Facebook-owner Meta has said it will not be signing

the code, saying that it introduces a number of legal

uncertainties for model developers, as well as measures which go

far beyond the scope of the AI Act.

(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank

Dhaniwala)