[News] Musk: Tesla’s In-House AI5 Chip to Tape Out, AI6 Development Underway

On November 23 (local time), Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on X that the company is close to completing the tape-out of its in-house AI5 chip, while kicking off the development of the next-generation AI6 chip. The AI5 has passed its design review and delivers 2000–2500 TOPS of compute performance — five times that of the current AI4 — enabling support for advanced unsupervised autonomous-driving algorithms.

“Our goal is to bring a new AI chip design into mass production every 12 months. Ultimately, the number of chips we produce will exceed the combined output of all other AI chips,” Musk said on X.

The AI5 is reportedly slated for small-batch engineering sample production in 2026, with full-scale mass production targeted for 2027 to meet compute demands across passenger vehicles and data-center platforms.

Earlier this month, Musk revealed that Tesla will continue its dual-foundry strategy: the AI6 chip will be manufactured in parallel at Samsung’s Taylor, Texas facility and TSMC’s fab in Arizona.

As he said, both the AI5 and AI6 chips will be fabricated by Samsung and TSMC, each producing slightly different physical variants but sharing identical designs and software — with differences arising only from each foundry’s physical implementation process.

Tesla has built a world-class AI chip R&D team and has deployed millions of custom chips to power its autonomous-driving systems and data-center infrastructure, forming a distinct vertically integrated technology ecosystem. Musk emphasized that continual breakthroughs in AI compute will elevate autonomous-driving safety to multiples of human-level performance.

These chips will also support Tesla’s Optimus program, with first-generation robot expected to enter production by late 2025 and a second-generation model to roll out and open to market in 2026. The initiative is poised to accelerate the adoption of robotics across manufacturing, healthcare, and other sectors, paving the way for a safer and smarter future.

(Photo credit: Tesla)