Elon Musk said his Terafab project — a grand plan to eventually manufacture his own chips for robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and space data centers — would be built in Austin and jointly run by Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX).
Musk, the chief executive officer of the two companies, said he would start off with an “advanced technology fab” in Austin that would have all of the equipment necessary to make chips of any kind.
The project would call for one day supporting 1 terawatt (TW) of computing power per year, the amount Musk expects the companies to eventually use as he ramps up his investments in AI and robotics.
Photo: AFP
The billionaire detailed some specific plans, including producing chips that can support 100 to 200 gigawatts a year of computing power on Earth, and chips that can support 1TW in space, but gave no timelines for the facility or its output.
Musk has said previously that the facility would produce 2 nanometer chips. The project is planned for an area near Tesla’s existing Austin headquarters and gigafactory, based on a photo shown during the presentation.
Many executives have expressed anxiety about a shortage of chips — particularly memory chips — during the race to build computing power for AI, but it is rare to try building them. Bringing semiconductor facilities online typically takes tens of billions dollars and requires the purchase of complex machines from multiple providers. Factories can take years to become fully operational.
Musk made the announcement in a downtown Austin venue to an audience that included Texas Governor Greg Abbott. If it succeeds, the project could help elevate Texas’ status as a chipmaking hub.
Tesla already has an agreement with Samsung Electronics Co facility near Austin on upcoming chips. The electric vehicle company also has existing suppliers, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Micron Technology Inc that Musk says are also not able to meet all the company’s needs as Tesla pivots its focus to robotics, autonomous driving and AI.
The facility is expected to make two types of chips, one of which would be optimized for edge and inference, primarily for his vehicle, robotaxi and Optimus humanoid robots. The other would be a high-power chip, designed for space that could be used by SpaceX and xAI.
During the presentation, Musk also unveiled a speculative rendering of a future “mini” AI data center satellite, one piece of a much larger satellite system that he wants SpaceX to build to do complex computing in space. He said that the mini satellite he revealed would have the capacity for 100 kilowatts of power.
“We expect future satellites to probably go to the megawatt range,” Musk said.
The presentation also included some of Musk’s loftier ambitions. He showed an animation of how SpaceX could potentially launch satellites from the surface of the moon, and reiterated his vision for a future filled with “amazing abundance” — something he has been touting in recent months.
“The future I want to see: I want us to live long enough to see the mass driver on the moon,” Musk said, referring to the contraption that would launch satellites from the lunar surface, “because that’s going to be incredibly epic.”
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
OPTIMISTIC: Inflation still has a chance of remaining below the central bank’s 2 percent alert level, as Taiwan’s economy is resilient with healthy exports, the NDC minister said Taiwan’s inflation could exceed 2 percent this year if oil prices continue to surge amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, prompting the government to reassess its economic outlook, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. DGBAS Minister Chen Shu-tzu (陳淑姿) told lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee that the agency’s earlier growth forecast of 1.68 percent in the consumer price index (CPI) and 7.71 percent for GDP this year did not account for the ongoing Middle East conflict and would need revision, if tensions persist. The previous forecast assumed an average international crude price of
ELECTRIC DREAMS: Smart cities would use ‘virtual power plants,’ which integrate idle electricity use from households, businesses and factories, Asustek said Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday showcased key components of its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven smart city initiatives at a trade show in Taipei, eyeing new business opportunities as cities develop sovereign AI infrastructure. Advances in generative, multimodal and physical AI are driving cities toward a new phase of “sovereign AI,” Asustek cochief executive officer Samson Hu (胡書賓) told reporters on the sidelines of the Smart City Summit and Expo at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center’s Hall 2. The company showcased its “AI City” framework, which comprises three layers — computing infrastructure centered on AI servers, AI models and a platform layer for data processing
RSS