Musk says Tesla, SpaceX, xAI chip project to kick off in Texas

Elon Musk said his Terafab project — a grand plan to eventually manufacture his own chips for robotics, artificial intelligence and space data centers — will be built in Austin and jointly run by Tesla and SpaceX.

Musk, the chief executive officer of both companies, said he will start off with an “advanced technology fab” in Austin that will have all of the equipment necessary to make chips of any kind, and test them. Musk, who has no background in semiconductor production and a history of over-promising on goals and timelines, had said before that the company will start with a smaller scale fab before moving to a bigger one.

Musk has said the semiconductor industry is moving too slow to keep up with the supply of chips he expects to need, even as the industry increases output.

“That rate is much less than we’d like,” Musk said. “We either build the Terafab or we don’t have the chips, and we need the chips, so we build the Terafab.” Musk’s project would call for one day supporting a terawatt of computing power per year, the amount he expects the companies to eventually use as he ramps up his investments in AI and robotics.

Musk detailed some specific plans, including producing chips that can support 100 to 200 gigawatts a year of computing power on Earth, and chips that can support a terawatt in space, bu...