Tesla will streamline its AI chip analysis to concentrate on its growth of inference chips used to run AI fashions and make real-time selections, CEO Elon Musk mentioned, after a media report he had ordered the closure of the in-house Dojo supercomputer staff.
Bloomberg Information on Thursday cited individuals accustomed to the matter as saying Musk had ordered the Dojo staff to be disbanded, with staff chief Peter Bannon departing the corporate.
Tesla didn’t reply to a Reuters request for remark.
The Dojo supercomputer was designed round customized coaching chips to course of huge quantities of knowledge and video from Tesla EVs to coach the automaker’s autonomous-driving software program.
“It doesn’t make sense for Tesla to divide its assets and scale two fairly completely different AI chip designs,” Musk mentioned in an X publish late on Thursday.
“The Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips might be glorious for inference and at the very least fairly good for coaching. All effort is concentrated on that,” he mentioned, with out straight mentioning Dojo.
Morgan Stanley analysts led by Adam Jonas valued the Dojo supercomputer at $500 billion in 2023, saying it opened a brand new marketplace for the automaker past automobiles gross sales, just like how Amazon’s cloud unit boosts revenue for the ecommerce agency.
“Dojo is the important thing accelerant on the intersection of {hardware} and software program,” the brokerage mentioned on August 4. Jonas didn’t instantly reply to a question if the newest growth would damage Tesla’s valuation.
Tech firms are more and more designing customized chips to chop latency, energy and price, whereas consolidating round fewer architectures.
Tesla has been restructuring over the previous yr, with its share value slumping as gross sales of its EVs had been hit by rising competitors and a backlash by European shoppers specifically in opposition to Musk’s political beliefs.
