Elon Musk revealed details of his TerraFab plans on Saturday evening. And Tesla’s CEO has an ambitious vision for the project.
“We are starting a galactic civilization,” Musk said from the decommissioned Seaholm Power Plant in Austin.
Terrafab is a giant chip manufacturing venture formed between Musk’s company Tesla and SpaceX. XAI is also included, as the AI startup was acquired by Musk’s space company in February.
As semiconductor analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a recent note, the idea of developing a chip fab on its own is “very difficult.” The sheer cost, along with the technical know-how and specialized tools required, has divided the industry into fabless design companies like Nvidia and foundries like TSMC.
Musk said on Saturday that TerraFab is needed not only to expand robotaxis and Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, but also to deploy space-based computing. The CEO said the factory will develop chips “designed for space” to deploy solar-powered AI satellites.
Here are some key points from the presentation.
All-in-one chip factory
Musk said TerraFab will be a comprehensive factory with all the equipment needed to test, modify and manufacture chips.
The CEO is essentially proposing to bring some of the validation stages of chip development that would normally take place outside of a fab factory under one roof.
“As far as I know, there is no place in the world that has everything you need to build logic, memory, package and test, create masks, improve masks and keep looping,” Musk said.
There are 2 types of chips
Musk said Terrafab will produce two types of chips.
One is primarily designed for Optimus and Tesla vehicles, which are built and trained to be fully self-driving. Musk said the chip will be “specifically” for Optimus, as he expects the unit volume to be 10 to 100 times the car volume.
The other chip, called D3, will be specialized for space environments. The CEO said he expects most of the data centers will be in low Earth orbit and will require solar-powered AI satellites.
Musk said the cost of deploying AI in space would be “less than the cost of AI on Earth” because there is always sunlight and more power available.
“So it makes very compelling sense to put AI in space as soon as orbiting costs drop to low numbers,” he said. “Basically, it makes it easier.”
mini AI satellite
Part of Musk’s vision for a decentralized AI computing network is in space.
He unveiled a concept design for a small AI satellite that can provide 100KW of power capacity, with solar power installed on each satellite.
Musk predicted that in the future, satellites will reach the megawatt range.
The CEO said these satellites are ideal because no one wants to put an AI computing center in their “backyard.”
Petawat and other moonshots
Musk suggested that his company could set up an industrial base on the moon in the future.
This will unlock the ability to generate petawatts of AI computing, 1,000 times more than 1 terawatt, he said.
The CEO also envisioned a free trip to Saturn in a post-scarcity economy where everything is free.
Mr. Musk acknowledged the outlandish nature of his “wealth” proposal, saying, “It’s a little bit like the opening of ‘Idiocracy’ by Mike Judge.”