Elon Musk has taken a moment to express his ‘appreciation’ for Samsung Foundry, a gesture that could significantly boost the Korean company’s profile as it secures orders for Tesla’s latest AI chips. This partnership marks an important step for Samsung in the competitive AI chip market.
Tesla’s AI5 Chips: A Leap in Performance
Samsung’s foundry division has achieved a major milestone by securing orders for Tesla’s AI6 chips, utilizing the advanced SF2 (2nm) process. This collaboration signifies a crucial breakthrough for Samsung, with Elon Musk praising Samsung’s Taylor fab as “slightly advanced” over TSMC’s Arizona facility during a recent Q3 earnings call. Notably, both Samsung and TSMC are involved in producing the AI5 chips, demonstrating the importance of this new addition to Tesla’s lineup.
It has been confirmed that Tesla’s AI6 chips will be produced in the US, but the AI5 chips represent a new development, as they were previously manufactured solely by TSMC. This shift highlights Samsung Foundry’s growing appeal to Elon Musk, a substantial achievement for the company. The AI5 chips are reported to offer a remarkable improvement, potentially boosting performance up to forty times compared to the AI4, an impressive leap for just one generational change.
Innovative Design and Future Prospects
In discussing the AI5 chip’s architecture, Musk revealed that Tesla’s design team has removed the ‘legacy GPU block’. This likely means integrating AI tile kernels and similar elements tailored for specific workloads, aligning with Tesla’s computing objectives. The “half a reticle” size of the AI5 chip indicates a large package with numerous accelerator tiles and an expanded on-chip SRAM footprint, which is expected to achieve the performance gains that Tesla seeks.
Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for the AI5 is so high that he desires an ‘oversupply’ of the chips, prompting a need for increased production at Samsung’s Taylor fab to meet the anticipated demand. This collaboration with Tesla is poised to strengthen Samsung’s manufacturing presence in the U.S. and facilitate broader adoption among clients.