Elon Musk stated over the lengthy weekend that Tesla goals to restart work on Dojo3, the electrical automobile firm’s beforehand deserted third-generation AI chip. Solely this time, Dojo3 gained’t be geared toward coaching self-driving fashions on Earth. As a substitute, Musk says will probably be devoted to “space-based AI compute.”
The transfer comes 5 months after Tesla successfully shut down its Dojo effort. The corporate disbanded the workforce behind its Dojo supercomputer following the departure of Dojo lead Peter Bannon. Round 20 Dojo staff additionally left to affix DensityAI, a brand new AI infrastructure startup based by former Dojo head Ganesh Venkataramanan and ex-Tesla workers Invoice Chang and Ben Floering.
On the time of Dojo’s shutdown, Bloomberg reported Tesla deliberate to extend its reliance on Nvidia and different companions like AMD for compute and Samsung for chip manufacturing, fairly than proceed growing its personal customized silicon. Musk’s newest feedback recommend the technique has shifted once more.
The billionaire government and Republican megadonor stated in a publish on X the choice to revive Dojo was based mostly on the state of its in-house chip roadmap, noting that Tesla’s AI5 chip design was “in fine condition.”
Tesla’s AI5 chip, made by TSMC, was designed to energy the automaker’s automated driving options and Optimus humanoid robots. Final summer time, Tesla signed a $16.5 billion take care of Samsung to construct its AI6 chips that promise to energy Tesla automobiles and Optimus, in addition to allow high-performance AI coaching in information facilities.
“AI7/Dojo3 can be for space-based AI compute,” Musk stated on Sunday, positioning the resurrected mission as extra of a moonshot.
To attain that, Tesla is now gearing as much as rebuild the workforce it dismantled months in the past. Musk used the identical publish to recruit engineers immediately, writing: “For those who’re involved in engaged on what would be the highest quantity chips on the planet, ship a word to AI_Chips@Tesla.com with 3 bullet factors on the hardest technical issues you’ve solved.”
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The timing of the announcement is notable. At CES 2026, Nvidia unveiled Alpamayo, an open supply AI mannequin for autonomous driving that immediately challenges Tesla’s FSD software program. Musk commented on X that fixing the lengthy tail of uncommon edge instances in driving is “tremendous onerous,” including: “I truthfully hope they succeed.”
Musk and several other different AI executives have argued the way forward for information facilities might lie off-planet, since Earth’s energy grids are already strained to the max. Axios lately reported Musk rival and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman can also be excited by the prospect of placing information facilities into orbit. Musk has an edge over his friends as a result of he already controls the launch automobiles.
Per Axios, Musk plans to make use of SpaceX’s upcoming IPO to assist finance his imaginative and prescient of utilizing Starship to launch a constellation of compute satellites that may function in fixed daylight, harvesting solar energy 24/7.
Nonetheless, there are various roadblocks to creating AI information facilities in house a risk, not least the problem of cooling high-power compute in a vacuum. Musk’s feedback of Tesla constructing “space-based AI compute” match a well-recognized sample: float an concept that sounds far-fetched, then attempt to brute-force it into actuality.
