Elon Musk mentioned over the lengthy weekend that Tesla goals to restart work on Dojo3, the electrical car firm’s beforehand deserted third-generation AI chip. Solely this time, Dojo3 received’t be aimed toward coaching self-driving fashions on Earth. As an alternative, Musk says it is going to 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 employees additionally left to join 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, slightly than proceed growing its personal customized silicon. Musk’s newest feedback recommend the technique has shifted once more.
The billionaire government and Republican megadonor mentioned in a post 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 season, Tesla signed a $16.5 billion cope with Samsung to construct its AI6 chips that promise to energy Tesla autos and Optimus, in addition to allow high-performance AI coaching in information facilities.
“AI7/Dojo3 might be for space-based AI compute,” Musk said on Sunday, positioning the resurrected challenge 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: “In the event you’re considering engaged on what would be the highest quantity chips on the planet, ship a notice 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 arduous,” including: “I truthfully hope they succeed.”
Musk and several other different AI executives have argued the way forward for information facilities could lie off-planet, since Earth’s energy grids are already strained to the max. Axios recently reported Musk rival and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman can 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 autos.
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 area 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-known sample: float an concept that sounds far-fetched, then attempt to brute-force it into actuality.
