Wow, Tesla's Next Gen Chip Is NOT What We Thought ⚡️

Elon Musk congratulated the Tesla AI chip design team on taping out AI5.

Tesla's AI6, Dojo 3, and other chips are currently in development.

The AI5 design features a main processor in the middle and 12 memory dies (six on each side) packaged together on a substrate.

Elon Musk thanked Taiwan Semi and Samsung for their support in bringing the AI5 chip to production.

Elon Musk stated that AI4 is sufficient to achieve much better than human safety for Full Self-Driving (FSD).

Elon Musk stated on March 18, 2026, that AI5 will punch far above its weight because the entire AI software stack is designed for maximal effective use of every circuit.

Elon Musk stated that AI5 is primarily optimized for AI edge compute in Optimus and robotaxis, though it can be used for training in data centers.

A common misconception compared Tesla's AI4 PCB (with two SOCs) directly to just one AI5 SOC, which has a new memory packaging strategy.

The tape out process typically locks the transistor layout in the die itself (the main processor), but allows flexibility for advanced packaging with different memory configurations.

Elon Musk stated late last year that AI5's power consumption could be brought down closer to 250 watts, which is significant for Optimus.

AI5's integrated memory allows for much better context windows, faster data access, improved reaction times, better understanding of complex scenes, and lower power draw for robo-taxis and Optimus.

Any samples and early production of AI5 might be made in Korea, but volume production will likely happen in the United States.

A Tesla job posting for a senior process engineer for dielectric deposition for the Terrafab mentions developing processes across three distinct chip families: edge inference processors, space-hardened chips for orbital satellites, and high bandwidth memory.

Another Tesla job posting for a senior process engineer for lithography for the Terrafab indicates Tesla plans to use both DUV and EUV machines, including EUV scanners from ASML.

Elon Musk stated that AI6 with LP DDR6 memory addresses AI5's design concessions and will deliver a true doubling of performance over AI5 in the same half reticle size using Samsung's 2-nanometer fab in Texas.

Tesla's stock was up 7.62% to $391.95 on April 15, 2026, outperforming the NDX by 5.4x.