Elon Musk Launches Terafab In-House Chip Production Plan
AFP, Washington, 21st. Global richest person Elon Musk announced today his latest bold plan, Terafab, which will produce chips required for artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and space data centers.
Musk said that the Terafab manufacturing facility will be located near Austin, Texas, with a goal of producing chips with an annual computing power equivalent to 1TW (terawatt, terawatt).
Musk also said that this plan will be operated jointly by his electric vehicle company Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.
He did not reveal the initial investment amount, but previous reports by U.S. media indicated it is between 20 billion and 25 billion dollars.
Musk has no experience in semiconductor manufacturing. He said that the reason he needs Terafab is because the computing power demand of Tesla and SpaceX will far exceed the capacity of global chip suppliers.
Musk said, "We are very grateful to the existing supply chain, including Samsung, TSMC, and Micron," but their capacity expansion has its limits, and "that speed is far slower than what we want... We need these chips, so we are going to build Terafab."
Musk said that the "Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Plant" in Austin will have the capability to design, manufacture, test, and improve each chip.
The plan aims to produce chips capable of supporting 100 to 200GW (gigawatts, gigawatts) of computing power on Earth, as well as chips capable of supporting 1TW of computing power in space.
Musk said that Terafab will eventually help humanity become a "galactic civilization" capable of utilizing resources from other planets and stars. However, he did not disclose a schedule for Terafab's production output.
Original: toutiao.com/article/1860383944668231/
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