Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Musk and Intel build orbital AI

Transcript

Musk and Intel build orbital AI · Elon Musk Podcast

• 0:00
  Elon Musk's companies Tesla, SpaceX and XAI are partnering
• 0:04
  with Intel to build Terafab, a 100 million square foot
• 0:08
  semiconductor factory designed to produce 1 terawatt of
• 0:12
  computing power per year, which is 50 times the output of the
• 0:15
  entire global chip industry combined.
• 0:17
  Yeah, and this facility in Austin, TX is designed to
• 0:21
  consolidate the entire chip making pipeline.
• 0:23
  So, you know, design, fabrication, and testing.
• 0:25
  They're all under one single roof to power billions of
• 0:28
  humanoid robots and a massive network of orbital data centers.
• 0:31
  How does putting chip manufacturing, robotics, and
• 0:34
  orbital rockets into a single closed loop completely alter the
• 0:38
  physical and financial limits of artificial intelligence?
• 0:40
  Well. Terafab utilizes this like
• 0:43
  recursive loop, where silicon design, lithography, mask memory
• 0:47
  production, advanced packaging and testing all happened in the
• 0:49
  exact same building. And Intel is actually bringing
• 0:52
  its 18 A process node to this facility, which features ribbon
• 0:55
  FET, so gate all around transistors and power via
• 0:58
  backside power delivery. Because traditional chip
• 1:01
  manufacturing requires, you know, shipping wafers and
• 1:04
  designs across the globe between different specialists.
• 1:07
  But with Intel's power via, the power routing is hourly moved to
• 1:11
  the back of the wafer, which physically separates it from the
• 1:14
  signal wires to reduce electrical interference.
• 1:17
  And that changes the iteration speed entirely.
• 1:19
  Like instead of waiting on external foundries like TSMC or
• 1:23
  Samsung, Terrafab can just manufacture, test and redesign
• 1:26
  chips continuously, Yeah. You aren't waiting on cargo
• 1:29
  ships. Exactly, it limits their
• 1:31
  reliance on vulnerable global supply chains, opening up a
• 1:35
  fully sovereign domestic manufacturing stack.
• 1:37
  I mean, it is basically like writing a book by mailing
• 1:40
  individual chapters back and forth to an editor overseas,
• 1:44
  whereas Terafab is having the writer, the editor and printing
• 1:47
  press sitting at the exact same desk.
• 1:49
  Hold on, let's look at what is actually coming off these
• 1:52
  assembly lines. Good point.
• 1:53
  The facility produces 2 highly specialized chip families.
• 1:56
  You have the AI5 and AI6 chips for terrestrial edge and friends
• 2:00
  and then the D3 radiation hardened chip for space.
• 2:03
  Yeah, and the AI5 and AI6 chips willpower Tesla vehicles and the
• 2:07
  Optimus humanoid robots with a target of producing like 1 to 10
• 2:11
  billion robots annually, which is.
• 2:13
  Just a crazy volume. It is, but 80% of Terrafab's
• 2:17
  output is actually dedicated to the D3 chip for space, and the
• 2:22
  D3 is uniquely designed to run hotter than normal chips.
• 2:25
  Right, and designing chips to run hotter changes the physical
• 2:28
  constraints of satellites because it limits the need for
• 2:31
  heavy cooling radiators, which opens up the ability to pack way
• 2:34
  more compute power into lighter payloads for orbit.
• 2:37
  Wait, back up. Yeah, why send 80% of the
• 2:40
  computing power to space in the first place?
• 2:42
  Because SpaceX has filed an application to launch 1,000,000
• 2:46
  AI data center satellites into low Earth orbit and Starship is
• 2:50
  designed to lift 10 million tons of payload annually just to
• 2:53
  achieve this terawatt of space based computing.
• 2:56
  That is a staggering amount of payload.
• 2:59
  Right, but the physics behind that strategy dictate the move.
• 3:02
  Earth's power grids are severely constrained, and finding energy
• 3:06
  for terrestrial data centers is increasingly difficult.
• 3:09
  Yeah, that makes sense. But in orbit, solar panels
• 3:11
  receive 5 times the energy they do on Earth, unattenuated by an
• 3:15
  atmosphere or day. Night cycles.
• 3:17
  Which changes the fundamental economics of energy consumption
• 3:20
  entirely because it limits the need for battery storage or grid
• 3:23
  approvals, opening up a future where space based AI compute
• 3:28
  actually costs less than terrestrial compute.
• 3:31
  But I have to express some skepticism about the logistical
• 3:33
  reality of the supply chain here.
• 3:35
  Really. Yeah.
• 3:36
  I mean, there is a severe global shortage of helium, which is a
• 3:40
  critical element for chip cooling and processing, mostly
• 3:44
  due to geopolitical conflicts. So how does an operation
• 3:47
  launching 50,000 rockets per year avoid buckling under raw
• 3:51
  material shortages? You are entirely right to point
• 3:54
  that out. Acknowledging the extreme
• 3:55
  execution risks involved is completely necessary.
• 3:58
  Securing those materials is going to be a massive hurdle.
• 4:01
  OK, we've covered the physics. Let's talk about the money.
• 4:03
  Yeah, so SpaceX acquired XAI in a $1.25 trillion all stock
• 4:08
  merger that unifies the Grok AI engine, Starlink, and Orbital
• 4:12
  rockets. And to fund the estimated 20 to
• 4:15
  $25 billion cost of Terafab, SpaceX is targeting a $1.75
• 4:19
  trillion valuation in an initial public offering.
• 4:23
  Because building 100 million square feet of factory space and
• 4:26
  securing high NA EUV lithography machines requires unprecedented
• 4:30
  capital, and simultaneously Intel gets a guaranteed high
• 4:33
  volume anchor customer to validate its foundry business,
• 4:36
  which you know has been operating at a massive loss.
• 4:39
  And that financial convergence changes the structure of the AI
• 4:41
  industry. It limits Tesla's standalone
• 4:44
  financial exposure to these massive infrastructure costs,
• 4:47
  opening up a shared capital pool that funds the entire hardware
• 4:50
  and software stack required to pursue artificial general
• 4:52
  intelligence. Exactly, It completely
• 4:54
  distributes the financial burden across the entities.
• 4:56
  So by merging Intel's Advanced 18 A manufacturing with Spacex's
• 5:00
  launch capacity and XAI software, Terafab physically
• 5:03
  bypasses Earth's energy constraints to build a
• 5:06
  vertically integrated AI infrastructure in orbit.
• 5:09
  If human intelligence is eventually dwarfed by a network
• 5:12
  of orbital AI satellites powered by constant solar energy, who
• 5:16
  governs the physical infrastructure of that
• 5:18
  intelligence when it sits permanently outside any single
• 5:21
  country's borders? If you're not subscribed yet,
• 5:24
  take a second and hit follow on whatever app you're using.
• 5:26
  It helps us keep making this. We appreciate you being here.