Earlier this year, Elon Musk announced that Tesla had completed the design of its AI5 SoC. Today, we learn that the company will receive these processors from a United States-based Samsung fab located in Taylor, Texas. This means Samsung is preparing to produce the AI5 chip on its SF2 2 nm node on U.S. soil, effectively utilizing the CHIPS Act funding it received to manufacture silicon for domestic companies. As more companies push for domestic manufacturing, Tesla has been working with Samsung and TSMC to leverage their American-based facilities to align the vital parts of the supply chain with the location where the company is based and conducts most of its business.

For Samsung, this is a significant customer win, as Tesla will undertake major volume production in its Taylor fab on the SF2 node. This is one of the first major projects outside of Samsung's usual operations in South Korea, where most of its leading-edge production occurs. Regarding the AI5 chip, Tesla has designed these processors for Full Self-Driving (FSD). The CEO also mentioned that the AI5 chip will offer performance comparable to NVIDIA's "Hopper" architecture, with two AI5 units matching the power of a single "Blackwell" processor. On both the left and right sides, there are two rows of SK hynix LPDDR5X memory modules, each with three modules. This totals 12 LPDDR5X memory modules per AI5 chip. With 16 GB per module, this results in 192 GB of LPDDR5X memory per AI5 SoC. Additionally, Tesla has ambitious plans for nine-month design cycles for the AI6, which will also be part of the joint effort between Samsung, TSMC, and possibly even Intel with its advanced packaging. Musk confirmed that the AI6 and Dojo 3 projects, among other "exciting chips," are currently in progress, suggesting we could see much more custom silicon ASICs in the coming months.