Samsung now taking bigger role in making Tesla chips, says Elon Musk

In July, Musk said Samsung made Tesla's AI4 chip and would produce the next-gen AI6, while TSMC handles the current in-development version

By Ed Ludlow

 

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said that Samsung Electronics Co. is taking a bigger role in manufacturing the carmaker’s chips, signaling that the South Korean company is making inroads in a market dominated by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.  

Musk told investors on a conference call that Samsung will share manufacturing duties for the company’s in-development artificial intelligence chip, the AI5. That’s something he’d previously indicated would be produced by TSMC, the largest provider of made-to-order semiconductors. 

 

“I need to make a point of clarification relative to some comments I’ve made publicly before, which is we’re actually going to focus both TSMC and Samsung initially on AI5,” Musk said during Tesla’s third-quarter conference call.

 

AI5 is not designed like a conventional graphics processing unit, as it omits the image signal processing to save on space and maximize efficiency, Musk said on the call and via a post on X.

 

Tesla relies on the AI chips to power self-driving car features and its still-nascent line of robots. The company uses the technology alongside hardware from Nvidia Corp., the leading maker of AI computing processors.

 

In July, Musk said that Tesla would use Samsung to produce the next-generation AI6 chip, confirming a Bloomberg News report. The companies signed a $16.5 billion pact that was seen as a major win for Samsung’s foundry unit — a business that produces chips for outside clients. 

 

At the time, Musk said that Samsung was already making a prior-generation AI4 chip and that Tesla would rely on TSMC for the version that was currently in the works.

 

Samsung remains a distant second to TSMC in the foundry industry. But it’s stepping up investments in a production hub near Austin, where Tesla is based.