Tesla has taken a crucial step on its path of developing its own chips.
Recently, Musk announced on the X platform that the next-generation AI5 chip has completed the tape-out — this means the design blueprint has officially been handed over to the foundry and entered the actual manufacturing phase. The mass production schedule is set for 2027, when AI5 will fully replace the current AI4, becoming the core computing platform for Tesla's autonomous driving system and humanoid robot projects.
The performance figures are impressive. According to previous disclosures, the AI5 single-chip performance can match NVIDIA's Hopper architecture, while the combined performance of a dual-chip configuration approaches the Blackwell level. Meanwhile, the cost and power consumption are significantly lower than those of NVIDIA's comparable products. Musk previously stated that key performance indicators of AI5 have improved by about 40 times compared to the previous generation AI4, with memory increasing 9 times and computing power improving 8 times. Additionally, AI5 is expected to become the optimal inference chip for models with parameters below 250 billion.
Regarding manufacturing, the production of AI5 is jointly undertaken by Samsung and TSMC, with manufacturing taking place at Samsung's Tyler, Texas plant and TSMC's Arizona plant, relying entirely on U.S. domestic capacity. It is worth noting that when Musk posted, he mistakenly tagged the TSMC account, incorrectly pointing to a semiconductor company with a similar name, which caused a brief confusion on social media.
Musk rarely revealed the pressure behind this chip in his post: "Solving AI5 is crucial for Tesla's survival. We had to have two teams focus on it simultaneously, and I also spent several months working on it every Saturday personally." Now that the tape-out has been successfully completed, he said he finally has the capacity to restart the previously put-aside Dojo3 supercomputer processor development project.
R&D of the AI6 chip is also proceeding as planned. Tesla's self-developed chip roadmap is gradually moving forward step by step.
