Most people don’t know that Tesla has had an advanced AI chip and board engineering team for many years.

X ^ | 11/23/2025 | Elon Musk

[SmokingJoe]

Most people don’t know that Tesla has had an advanced AI chip and board engineering team for many years.

That team has already designed and deployed several million AI chips in our cars and data centers. These chips are what enable Tesla to be the leader in real-world AI.

The current version in cars is AI4, we are close to taping out AI5 and are starting work on AI6. Our goal is to bring a new AI chip design to volume production every 12 months. We expect to build chips at higher volumes ultimately than all other AI chips combined. Read that sentence again, as I’m not kidding.

These chips will profoundly change the world in positive ways, saving millions of lives due to safer driving and providing advanced medical care to all people via Optimus.

Send an email with three bullet points describing evidence of your exceptional ability to AI_Chips@Tesla.com.

We are particularly interested in applying cutting edge AI to chip design.

Thanks, Elon

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: ai; aichips; automotive; musk; tesla

[SmokingJoe]

I don't know about the part where he says, "We expect to build chips at higher volumes ultimately than all other AI chips combined". How's that possible?

[ClearCase_guy]

applying cutting edge AI to chip design

AI making AI better.

The training of the software matters a lot, but AI making better AI hardware is an indication that this stuff can bootstrap itself perhaps better than we can do the job.

[glorgau]

Samsung is building a huge fab - maybe $16 billion? - in Texas for these chips. They’re even thinking of using the compute available remotely. Think of all those Tesla cars sitting around on chargers.

[escapefromboston]

I’d prefer not to have spyware in my car

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“I’d prefer not to have spyware in my car”

Keep enjoying your 1979 Buick Electra.

[escapefromboston]

Looks better than anything Tesla has put out at least

[fireman15]

I am a computer hobbyist and enjoy playing with AI models known as LLMs (large language models) and using various AI apps that do image, video and music generation, along with chat.

AS an example here is my humorous cat music page which uses AI generated images and music just for fun.

https://teddycat.fun/

At the end of page 2 there are also a picture of me with my Skypup ultralight airplane along with a couple pictures that I took that day from it. This was decades ago before drones as we know them these days were available.

The amount of nonsensical hype about AI is somewhere above 95% when it comes to anything related to it.

[fireman15]

“I'd prefer not to have spyware in my car”

Keep enjoying your 1979 Buick Electra.

You need to go back a little further which is why kids today have no idea about the basics of tuning an engine which doesn't have a computer-controlled engine. I don't know when the surveyance started however. By 1979 a bunch of cars already had computers controlling their engines.

https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/c/remanufactured/ignition-—tune-up/computer/7e8c336bad79/cardone-engine-control-module-remanufactured/a1c0/774330/v/a/3240/automotive-truck-1979-chevrolet-el-camino

Here is a list of just the Chevys that took the above computer:

El Camino Base with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
El Camino Base with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
El Camino Royal Knight with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
El Camino Royal Knight with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Base with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Base with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic Estate with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic Estate with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic Landau with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic Landau with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic Sport with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic Sport with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Classic with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Estate with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Estate with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Landau with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Landau with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Police with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Police with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Sport with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Malibu Sport with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Monte Carlo Base with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Monte Carlo Base with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Monte Carlo Landau with engine V6 - 3.8L 231ci GAS 2BBL vin 2 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle
Monte Carlo Landau with engine V6 - 3.8L 3800cc 231ci GAS 2BBL vin A type LD5 - 2 valve OHV
1979
1979

1 vehicle

[LastDayz]

Generally around the mid-70’s and below are considered somewhat “simple” machines.

[SaxxonWoods]

“Generally around the mid-70’s and below are considered somewhat “simple” machines.”

My 2009 Frontier feels marvelously antique and simple compared to my outdated 2016 F150. I don’t want anything newer. Wife’s newer Honda is a POS. Terrible throttle response and a dead battery meant a tow using skates because the wheels lock. Tow guy couldn’t even jump it.

[GOPJ]

The current version in cars is AI4, we are close to taping out AI5 and are starting work on AI6. Our goal is to bring a new AI chip design to volume production every 12 months. We expect to build chips at higher volumes ultimately than all other AI chips combined. Read that sentence again, as I’m not kidding.

If Musk and Intel team up it could be done with ease. Both companies are American - in culture and production facilities.

[antidemoncrat]

If I were to bet my life savings on who the winner of the AI development would be, I would bet on Musk.

[SmokingJoe]

He hardly ever loses, if at all.
But this will be the toughest fight he's ever had.
Too many super tough, super rich, super smart competitors he's competing against like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon etc etc.

[1FreeAmerican]

“Dr. Forbin - paging Dr. Forbin”...

[LastDayz]

The newer, the more computers/sensors controlling various functions of the vehicle. Just one more thing that’s been “stolen” from the people.... the ability to easily repair our own transportation. Control, control, control. Disgusting.

[Brian Griffin]

HW3 is based on a custom Tesla-designed system on a chip called “FSD Chip”, fabricated using a 14 nm process by Samsung. Jim Keller and Pete Bannon, among other architects, have led the project since February 2016. FSD Chip features twelve ARM Cortex-A72 CPUs operating at 2.6 GHz, two systolic arrays (not unlike the approach of TPU) operating at 2 GHz and a Mali GPU operating at 1 GHz. Tesla claimed that FSD Chip processes images at 2,300 frames per second (fps), which is a 21× improvement over the 110 fps image processing capability of HW2.5. The firm described FSD Chip as a “neural network accelerator” custom-designed for Tesla AI processing. Each of the two systolic arrays on a single FSD Chip are capable of 36 trillion operations per second, and there are two FSD Chips for redundancy.

HW3 cars are equipped with eight cameras, in the same locations and covering the same directions as the HW2 and HW2.5 cameras. Each of the eight cameras supplied with HW3 use the same AR0136A image sensor supplied by Onsemi, which has a maximum resolution of 1280×960 (1.2-megapixel) and a 3.75 μm pixel size. Initial versions of HW3 also included a Continental ARS4-B radar module.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot_hardware

[Brian Griffin]

Full Self-Driving Chip (FSD Chip, previously Autopilot Hardware 3.0) is an autonomous driving chip designed by Tesla and introduced in early 2019 for their own cars. Tesla claims the chip is aimed at autonomous levels 4 and 5. Fabricated on Samsung’s 14 nm process technology, the FSD Chip incorporates 3 quad-core Cortex-A72 clusters for a total of 12 CPUs operating at 2.2 GHz, a Mali G71 MP12 GPU operating 1 GHz, 2 neural processing units operating at 2 GHz, and various other hardware accelerators. The FSD supports up to 128-bit LPDDR4-4266 memory.

The security system is designed to ensure the chip only executes code that has been cryptographically-signed by Tesla.

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/tesla_%28car_company%29/fsd_chip

[Brian Griffin]

https://altitudeaddicts.com/2025/09/20/russia-vs-asml-can-an-11-2-nm-chip-machine-challenge-the-global-semiconductor-giant/

[SmokingJoe]

Ashok Elluswamy leading AI Tesla:

Not to mention, these chips are heavily co-designed with the @Tesla_AI software teams to achieve incredible performance, while also beating by a large margin on perf per Watt and perf per dollar.

For instance, AI4 can process and understand a million pixels of streaming video within ~1 ms. This is only achievable because the software AND the hardware are designed together to achieve this performance point.

https://x.com/aelluswamy/status/1992649962761670935?t=aRCG1DJjxMisOYPNrZLtYw&s=19

[SmokingJoe]

Samsung manufactures Tesla’s AI4 chips, which power the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) hardware (also known as Hardware 4 or HW4). These custom system-on-chip (SoC) processors are produced on a 7 nm process at Samsung’s facility in Hwaseong, South Korea. Tesla designs the chips internally, but Samsung handles the fabrication. This partnership was confirmed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and multiple reports, including a recent $16.5 billion multi-year deal for future chips that builds on Samsung’s existing role with AI4.