SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla to build large-scale computer chip factory in Texas
At an event this weekend in Austin Elon Musk announced that SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla will a build large-scale computer chip factory in Texas, dubbed Terrafab, designed to produce the chips needed by all three companies.
The “TERAFAB” project is a joint effort involving Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Musk said the chips will be used in vehicles, Tesla’s humanoid AI robots and for projects in space, including solar-powered AI satellites.
…In a Sunday post on X, Musk clarified that the Austin-area facility is one part of the larger project and will focus on chip design. The main TERAFAB facility, he said, would require thousands of acres, and multiple locations are being considered. Musk said the chip production was necessary to fuel his companies’ growth. On Saturday, he shared an ambitious vision for the future powered by TERAFAB, including billions of robots and interplanetary travel. “We want to be a civilization that expands to the galaxy with spaceships, that anyone can go anywhere they want at any time,” he said. “And have a city on the moon, cities on Mars, populate the solar system and send spaceships to other star systems.”
Essentially, Musk has realized that to build his data centers in orbit and on the Moon, he will a lot of computer chips. Early in the history of SpaceX Musk learned that being dependent on outside contractors was crippling. Too often those contractors saw SpaceX has a competitor and acted to sabotage it. He soon decided his companies must be vertically integrated, doing as much work as possible in-house.
He is now applying that policy in chip production as well.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
At an event this weekend in Austin Elon Musk announced that SpaceX, xAI, and Tesla will a build large-scale computer chip factory in Texas, dubbed Terrafab, designed to produce the chips needed by all three companies.
The “TERAFAB” project is a joint effort involving Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. Musk said the chips will be used in vehicles, Tesla’s humanoid AI robots and for projects in space, including solar-powered AI satellites.
…In a Sunday post on X, Musk clarified that the Austin-area facility is one part of the larger project and will focus on chip design. The main TERAFAB facility, he said, would require thousands of acres, and multiple locations are being considered. Musk said the chip production was necessary to fuel his companies’ growth. On Saturday, he shared an ambitious vision for the future powered by TERAFAB, including billions of robots and interplanetary travel. “We want to be a civilization that expands to the galaxy with spaceships, that anyone can go anywhere they want at any time,” he said. “And have a city on the moon, cities on Mars, populate the solar system and send spaceships to other star systems.”
Essentially, Musk has realized that to build his data centers in orbit and on the Moon, he will a lot of computer chips. Early in the history of SpaceX Musk learned that being dependent on outside contractors was crippling. Too often those contractors saw SpaceX has a competitor and acted to sabotage it. He soon decided his companies must be vertically integrated, doing as much work as possible in-house.
He is now applying that policy in chip production as well.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Vertical integration is the best way to go. You can control the quality of the product, keeping your standards in place. Contractors may substitute components or reduce the level of QA to increase profit.
I just hope the AI bubble bursting doesn’t take these companies down at the same time.
Another factor is that the manufacture for chips that will operate in space necessarily targets component capabilities shunned for terrestrial use. Primary among these is radiation hardness but the other much less recognized is the target sustained operating temperature (which paradoxically when higher makes radiative cooling, which is all you have in space, more efficient).
In commercial fabs the process is optimized for yield and both of these aspects work to reduce it. So having fab control is a powerful lever to optimize for these two requirements..
Finally, radiation tolerance will become ever more important in the commercial businesses Elon’s companies serve in terrestrial markets too. Bit flip glitches are a rare but unavoidable reality, and highly undesirable in self driving cars and autonomous robots, annd roducts more suceptable to them will create a feeding trough for trial lawyers as these products spread. So making serious investments to mitigate this problem will provide not just superior less risky products, but also somewhat of a shield against claims of“callous and malicious negligence” so often used to amplify jury awards.
BTW, going hand in glove with Terrafab in this regard SpaceX recently acquired the facility assets of a Cancer Radiation Therapy company in Florida too. This facility is a large synchrotron which Grok confirmed for me generates proton beams that very closely match the energy intensity of space outside of Earth’s protective magnetic field. A very useful asset for designing and optimizing the manufacture of semiconductors to be used there..