Tesla has shut down its Dojo supercomputer team and reassigned workers to other projects, with team leader Peter Bannon departing the company. The move reflects CEO Elon Musk’s strategic pivot toward consolidating AI chip development rather than dividing resources across multiple custom silicon projects, as the company increasingly relies on external partners like Nvidia and Samsung for its AI computing needs.
The big picture: Tesla is streamlining its AI strategy by abandoning its custom Dojo supercomputer in favor of focusing development efforts on its next-generation AI5 and AI6 chips.
• Musk explained on X that “it didn’t make sense for Tesla to divide its resources and scale two different AI chips.”
• The Dojo supercomputer was originally designed around custom training chips to process vast amounts of data and video from Tesla electric vehicles for autonomous-driving software development.
What’s happening to the team: The Dojo shutdown involves significant workforce changes as Tesla continues company-wide restructuring.
• About 20 workers recently left to join newly formed DensityAI, while remaining team members are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla.
• This follows a pattern of executive departures and thousands of job cuts over the past year as Tesla redirects focus toward AI-driven self-driving technology and robotics.
External partnerships taking center stage: Tesla is increasing reliance on established technology partners rather than developing everything in-house.
• The company plans to lean more heavily on Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices for compute power, while Samsung Electronics handles chip manufacturing.
• Samsung recently secured a $16.5 billion deal to supply AI chips to Tesla, expected to power self-driving cars, humanoid robots, and data centers.
• Musk previously announced that Samsung’s new chip factory in Taylor, Texas, would manufacture Tesla’s next-generation AI6 chip.
What’s next for Tesla’s AI chips: Despite shutting down Dojo, Musk outlined an ambitious roadmap for Tesla’s custom silicon development.
• “The Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips will be excellent for inference and at least pretty good for training. All effort is focused on that,” Musk said in an X post.
• Next-generation AI5 chips are expected to be produced by the end of 2026, with AI6 following afterward.
• Musk suggested that in a supercomputer cluster, “it would make sense to put many AI5/AI6 chips. One could call that Dojo 3, I suppose.”
Broader strategic context: The Dojo shutdown aligns with Musk’s integration strategy across his business empire, including recent moves involving his other companies.
• In March, xAI acquired social media platform X for $33 billion to enhance chatbot training capabilities.
• Tesla has also integrated the Grok chatbot into its vehicles, demonstrating cross-company AI collaboration.
Recent Stories
DOE fusion roadmap targets 2030s commercial deployment as AI drives $9B investment
The Department of Energy has released a new roadmap targeting commercial-scale fusion power deployment by the mid-2030s, though the plan lacks specific funding commitments and relies on scientific breakthroughs that have eluded researchers for decades. The strategy emphasizes public-private partnerships and positions AI as both a research tool and motivation for developing fusion energy to meet data centers' growing electricity demands. The big picture: The DOE's roadmap aims to "deliver the public infrastructure that supports the fusion private sector scale up in the 2030s," but acknowledges it cannot commit to specific funding levels and remains subject to Congressional appropriations. Why...
Oct 17, 2025Tying it all together: Credo’s purple cables power the $4B AI data center boom
Credo, a Silicon Valley semiconductor company specializing in data center cables and chips, has seen its stock price more than double this year to $143.61, following a 245% surge in 2024. The company's signature purple cables, which cost between $300-$500 each, have become essential infrastructure for AI data centers, positioning Credo to capitalize on the trillion-dollar AI infrastructure expansion as hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Elon Musk's xAI rapidly build out massive computing facilities. What you should know: Credo's active electrical cables (AECs) are becoming indispensable for connecting the massive GPU clusters required for AI training and inference. The company...
Oct 17, 2025Vatican launches Latin American AI network for human development
The Vatican hosted a two-day conference bringing together 50 global experts to explore how artificial intelligence can advance peace, social justice, and human development. The event launched the Latin American AI Network for Integral Human Development and established principles for ethical AI governance that prioritize human dignity over technological advancement. What you should know: The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Vatican's research body for social issues, organized the "Digital Rerum Novarum" conference on October 16-17, combining academic research with practical AI applications. Participants included leading experts from MIT, Microsoft, Columbia University, the UN, and major European institutions. The conference...