Elon Musk shares estimated timeline for Tesla’s AI6 chip

On Thursday, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the world’s richest person, announced that Tesla could finalize the 'tape-out' of its next-generation AI6 chip by December.

Musk previously stated last year that Samsung Electronics would be responsible for manufacturing the AI6 chips, which are likely to be used in Tesla’s self-driving cars and humanoid robots at its new factory in Taylor, Texas, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.

In July last year, Samsung won a $16.5 billion contract to supply artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Tesla.

When asked about when the chip would complete its final design, Musk said on his social media platform X on Thursday: 'If we're lucky and with the help of AI acceleration, we might complete the tape-out of AI6 in December.'

A Samsung executive said on Wednesday that the company plans to begin production of Tesla chips based on its advanced 2-nanometer process in the second half of 2027.

Tesla has designed specialized AI chips installed in its vehicles to run its assisted driving software 'Full Self-Driving' (FSD), as well as the more advanced software used in its autonomous taxi service, called Robotaxi.

Tesla also has an AI data center chip named Dojo, which the company expects will be needed to handle massive amounts of data as autonomous vehicles become more widespread. Dojo was designed specifically for this purpose.

Musk stated late Wednesday that Tesla is designing its fifth-generation AI chip to support its vision for autonomous driving.

According to Elon Musk, the AI5 chip can be used for data center training but is primarily optimized for edge computing in the humanoid robot Optimus and Robotaxi.

Although Tesla is strongly promoting its self-developed chips, Elon Musk stated on Wednesday that two of his companies, SpaceX AI and Tesla, are expected to continue placing large-scale orders for NVIDIA’s chips.

Last month, two of Musk's companies—SpaceX and xAI—completed a merger, with the new company valued at $1.25 trillion.

Notably, this is the first time Musk has referred to the merged entity as 'SpaceX AI.'

According to previous media reports, SpaceX AI aims to conduct its initial public offering (IPO) this year, potentially raising up to $50 billion.

News.Az 

By Ulviyya Salmanli