“The next step towards creating a galactic civilization.”
It is with these words that American billionaire Elon Musk introduced the Terafab project, a joint venture between his companies Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, for the production of chips for Artificial Intelligence, robotics, and space data centers.
Terafab will therefore be a manufacturing plant located near Austin, Texas, aiming to produce one terawatt of computing power per year, according to Musk.
The facility is expected to produce two types of chips: one optimized for edge computing and inference, and the other a high-power chip designed for space, which could be used by SpaceX and xAI, notes Bloomberg.
The project aims to produce chips capable of supporting computing power between 100 and 200 gigawatts on Earth and one terawatt in space. One terawatt equals 1,000 billion watts. For comparison, Musk stated that the energy demand of the United States is 0.5 terawatts.
It is an ambitious goal for a company (actually, three companies) that has never produced semiconductors before, but the ambitions become even more concrete, observes Mashable.
All the details.
TERAFAB READY TO RISE IN TEXAS
Initially, Terafab will be a huge chip manufacturing plant located next to Tesla’s Gigafactory in Texas, in Austin. Musk stated that it will be possible to produce a chip, test it, improve it, and continue iterating all in one building, something that “does not exist anywhere else in the world.”
THE VALUE OF THE PROJECT
The head of Tesla and SpaceX has not revealed the amount of the initial investment. Previous American media leaks estimated it between 20 and 25 billion dollars.
MUSK’S GOAL
According to Musk’s plans, the goal is for Terafab to reach a production capacity of 1 million chip wafers per month, using a 2-nanometer process technology.
To give an idea, the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world at the moment is the Taiwanese Tsmc, which plans to reach a monthly production of 140,000 2-nanometer chip wafers by the end of 2026, emphasizes Mashable.
In terms of actual chips, Musk expects Terafab to produce between 100 and 200 billion chips for artificial intelligence and memory per year.
POWERING TESLA’S CARS AND ROBOTS
The plant is expected to produce two types of chips: one optimized for edge processing and inference, mainly intended for its vehicles, robotaxis, and Optimus humanoid robots, reports Bloomberg. According to Musk, Tesla needs these chips and its current suppliers, including Samsung, Tsmc, Micron, and others, have “a maximum expansion rate they are willing to sustain.”
“This rate is much lower than what we would like. So, either we build Terafab, or we won’t have the chips,” he said during the presentation.
CHIPS FOR SPACE
The other will be a high-power chip, designed for space, which could be used by SpaceX and xAI.
It was in February when Elon Musk announced the acquisition of his AI startup xAI by his aerospace company, aiming—among other goals—to develop AI data centers in orbit, leveraging solar energy and reduced launch costs. At the end of January, SpaceX had filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the authority regulating the communications sector in the United States, for a constellation of up to one million satellites for orbital data centers.
The American entrepreneur stated he expects xAI to use the vast majority of the chips.
During the presentation, Musk also unveiled a hypothetical rendering of a future “mini” satellite for AI data centers, an element of a much larger satellite system that SpaceX intends to build to perform complex calculations in space. Musk stated that the presented mini satellite would have a capacity of 100 kilowatts. “We expect future satellites will probably reach the power of a megawatt,” Musk declared.
MUSK’S SUPER AMBITIONS
The timing Musk foresees for all this remains uncertain.
After all, the head of Tesla and SpaceX has no experience in semiconductor manufacturing and has a history of exaggerated promises about goals and timelines, recalls Bloomberg. The American billionaire had previously stated that the company would start with a small-scale production plant before moving on to a larger one.
At the same time, highlights Mashable, building a huge data center in space is an equally complex problem, although in this field SpaceX is in a unique position, being the most advanced aerospace company in the world.
