Elon Musk to build own AI chips with help of Optimus robots

Elon Musk on Saturday unveiled Terafab, a new chip manufacturing project jointly led by Tesla and SpaceX, aimed at expanding semiconductor production capacity.

Terafab, a manufacturing facility based near Austin, Texas, intends to bring logic, memory and advanced packaging under one roof. Musk said the facility aims for a capacity of one terawatt (1TW) per year, a scale he believes could help close the gap between current global chip supply and the surging demand driven by artificial intelligence.

Despite having no prior background in semiconductor manufacturing, Musk said the move was necessary as demand from Tesla and SpaceX is expected to far exceed the growth pace of existing suppliers.

"We're very grateful to our existing supply chain, to Samsung, TSMC, Micron and others... but there's a maximum rate at which they're comfortable expanding," Musk said. "That rate is much less than we would like... and we need the chips, so we're going to build the Terafab."

He dded that millions of Tesla's humanoid robots, Optimus, could be deployed to help construct and operate the facility.

Eventually, the project aims to make chips to support 100 to 200 gigawatts of computing power on Earth, and a terawatt in space.

Musk did not give a timeline for the Terafab's output, and has previously promised grand results from other projects on compressed time scales.

He said the Terafab would ultimately help humanity become a "galactic civilization" capable of harnessing the resources of other planets and stars.

(With input from AFP)