[News] Musk Confirms AI5 Tape-Out, but Wrong TSMC Tag Triggers Social Media Mix-Up

While Tesla is collaborating with Intel on its ambitious Terafab project, the company has also reached a key milestone in its next-generation AI chip program. According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk on X, the AI5 chip has officially completed tape-out.

As previously reported by TechPowerUp, Tesla opts to split production of its AI5 accelerator between Samsung Electronics and TSMC. Manufacturing would be carried out at Samsung’s Taylor, Texas plant as well as TSMC’s Arizona facility, the report adds.

It is interesting to note that Musk also tagged TSMC and Samsung as he attributed the contribution of both foundries on the post. However, the TSMC mention sparked confusion after he cited an incorrect account for the Taiwanese foundry, creating a brief social media mix-up, as noted by Maeli Business Newspaper.

The report points out that Musk tagged @TaiwanSemi_TSC, an account belonging to a similarly named Taiwanese semiconductor company, rather than TSMC’s official presence.

Maeli further explains that tape-out marks the final stage of chip design, meaning the blueprint has been handed over to a foundry for manufacturing. Mass production is expected to begin in 2027, roughly a year from now, the report adds.

In the same post, Musk also noted that several parallel R&D programs—including the next-generation AI6 chip and the Dojo 3 supercomputer processor—are progressing on schedule.

More Details on AI5

According to TradingKey, citing previous disclosures, a single AI5 chip delivers performance comparable to NVIDIA’s Hopper architecture, while a dual-chip setup approaches Blackwell-level capability, but with significantly lower cost and power consumption.

Positioned as the successor to the AI4, the AI5 chip is set to serve as the core computing backbone for Tesla’s autonomous driving systems and humanoid robotics initiatives, the report notes.

Musk, as per the report, previously said that key metrics of the AI5 chip would improve by around 40x compared with the previous-generation AI4, including 9x more memory and 8x higher compute capacity. It is expected to serve as an optimal inference chip for models with fewer than 250 billion parameters, according to TradingKey.

Read more

• [News] Tesla Reportedly Ramps TeraFab Hiring in Taiwan; TSMC Talent Seen as Primary Target
• [News] Delay at Samsung’s Taylor Reportedly Slips Mass Production to 2027, Raising Concerns for Tesla

(Photo credit: Elon Musk’s X)