Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur, said that Tesla and SpaceX will build a Terafab chip factory in Austin, Texas, to help power the two companies’ new technologies during a chip shortage. Musk wrote on X recently that Terafab will actually be two fabs, each making just one chip design.
One of Terafab’s buildings will make AI chips for Tesla’s electric cars and Optimus humanoid robots, and the other will make AI chips for SpaceX’s space-based data centers.
Musk said that his companies need the Terafab chips because they need more computing power than they can get from suppliers. He added that they either build the Terafab or they don’t have the chips – Musk said during a presentation at an Austin facility. He went on to say that the current global chip production would only meet a small part of his company’s future needs.
Musk thanked the companies’ current chip suppliers, such as Samsung, TSMC, and Micron. However, he said that his company’s demand would eventually be greater than the total amount of chips made around the world, which is why they needed the new AI chip plant.
Musk also said that SpaceX’s AI chip for data centers in space will need to be made in a certain way so that it can work properly and survive in space. He added that they need a high-powered chip made for space that can handle the harsher conditions there, like high-energy ions, photons, and electron buildup. He also said that the chip would need to work at higher temperatures.
Musk further added that Space is a dangerous place and that one would want to make it work better in space, and also want to run it a little hotter than one would normally run a chip on Earth to keep the radiator mass down.
Musk didn’t say when the Terafab chip factory in Austin would start. He has a history of announcing very ambitious projects, but some have been delayed or dropped.
Musk said that Terafab will eventually make one terawatt of computing power a year, which is about twice as much as the U.S. makes as of now.