Tesla closes its own supercomputer for AI Dojo training
Rumours have been confirmed that Tesla is disbanding the team that worked on the Dojo supercomputer designed to train AI for Optimus autopilots and robots. Instead, the company will focus on cooperation with AMD, Nvidia, and signing large contracts with Samsung for the supply of AI chips.
Details of the decision
Fired or transferred employees reported that project manager Peter Bannon left Tesla, and about 20 people joined DensityAI startup. Elon Musk told Bloomberg that Tesla does not want to waste resources on two different AI chip designs. All efforts are now focused on Tesla AI5, AI6 - they will be great for work and good enough for learning.
Technical reorientation: Tesla will continue to use GPUs from Nvidia (e.g., H100), will engage AMD more, and has signed a $16.5 billion contract with Samsung to manufacture AI chips until 2033.
What is Dojo?
Dojo is a supercomputer developed by Tesla with its own D1 chips, planned as a key resource for AI autopilot training, video analysis, and robotics. The project was launched in 2023.
What's next?
Tesla will now focus on Cortex, a powerful cluster based on more than 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs that has already been commissioned in Texas. Although the transition to nVidia and AMD technologies makes Musk's artificial intelligence (primarily Tesla's autopilot and Grok) more dependent on these companies' technologies, it does free up a lot of resources, as it is very difficult and expensive to develop an in-house AI training platform. And it is hardly the task of a car company.
The closure of Dojo will significantly improve Tesla's financial performance, but reduce the flexibility in the development of a car autopilot. On the other hand, the company has been claiming for years that it is about to abandon the live driver behind the wheel, but this has never happened. There is no hope that it will happen in the near future. Probably, investors got tired of hoping without hope and persuaded Musk to cut costs. Otherwise, he would hardly have received a generous financial bonus recently.
Source: www.engadget.com
