Elon Musk unveils chip manufacturing plans for SpaceX and Tesla

Elon Musk recently outlined ambitious plans for a chip development collaboration between his companies Tesla and SpaceX.

Bloomberg reports that Musk shared his plans Saturday evening at an event in downtown Austin, Texas, with a photo suggesting that what Musk calls the “Terafab” facility will be built near Tesla’s headquarters and “gigafactory” in Austin.

Musk said he is pursuing this project because semiconductor manufacturers are not making chips fast enough for his companies’ artificial intelligence and robotics needs: “We either build the Terafab, or we don’t have the chips, and we need the chips, so we build the Terafab.”

The goal is to manufacture chips that can support 100 to 200 gigawatts of computing power per year on Earth, along with a terawatt in space, Musk said. He gave no timeline for these plans.

As Bloomberg noted, Musk has no background in semiconductor manufacturing, but he does have a history of overpromising goals and timelines.