Tesla Shuts Down Dojo Supercomputer Project, Shifts AI Strategy

Tesla shuts down Dojo, the AI training supercomputer that Musk said would be key to full self-driving | TechCrunch

Tesla is breaking up the team behind its Dojo supercomputer, ending the automaker's play at developing in-house chips for driverless technology, according to Bloomberg. Dojo's lead, Peter Bannon, is leaving the company, and the remaining team members will be reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, per Bloomberg's reporting which cited anonymous sources. The disbanding of Tesla's Dojo efforts follows the departure of around 20 workers, who left the automaker to start their own AI company called DensityAI. The new startup is reportedly coming out of stealth soon and is building chips, hardware, and software that will power data centers for AI that are used in robotics, by AI agents, and in automotive applications. DensityAI was founded by former Dojo head Ganesh Venkataramanan and ex-Tesla employees Bill Chang and Ben Floering. It also comes at a crucial time for Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has pushed to get shareholders to view Tesla as an AI and robotics company, despite a limited robotaxi launch in Austin this past June that featured Model Y vehicles with a human in the front passenger seat and resulted in a number of reported incidents of the vehicles exhibiting problematic driving behavior. Tesla's decision to shut down Dojo, which Musk has been talking about since 2019, is a major shift in strategy. CEO Elon Musk has said that Dojo would be the cornerstone of Tesla's AI ambitions and its goal to reach full self-driving due to its ability to "process truly vast amounts of video data." He talked about Dojo, albeit briefly, as recently as the company's second-quarter earnings call. In 2023, Morgan Stanley predicted Dojo could add $500 billion to the company's market value by unlocking new revenue streams in the form of robotaxis and software services. Just last year, Musk noted that Tesla's AI team would "double down" on Dojo in the lead-up to Tesla's robotaxi reveal, which happened in October. But talk about Dojo halted around August 2024, when Musk began touting Cortex instead, Tesla's "giant new AI training supercluster being built at Tesla HQ in Austin to solve real-world AI." The Dojo project was one part supercomputer, one part in-house chip-making. Tesla unveiled its D1 chip when it formally announced Dojo at its first AI Day in 2021. Venkataramanan presented the chip, which Tesla said would be used alongside Nvidia's GPU to power the Dojo supercomputer. The automaker also said it was working on a next-gen D2 chip that would solve any information flow bottlenecks of its predecessor. Sources told Bloomberg that now Tesla plans to increase its reliance on Nvidia, as well as other external tech partners like AMD for compute and Samsung for chip manufacturing. Tesla last month signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to make its AI6 inference chips, a chip design that promises to scale from powering FSD and Tesla's Optimus humanoid robots all the way to high-performance AI training in data centers. During Tesla's second-quarter earnings call, Musk hinted at potential redundancies. "Thinking about Dojo 3 and the AI6 inference chip, it seems like intuitively, we want to try to find convergence there, where it's basically the same chip," Musk said. The news comes as Tesla's board offers Musk a $29 billion pay package to keep him at Tesla and help push the company's AI efforts forward, rather than getting too sidetracked by his other companies, including the more pure-play AI startup xAI. TechCrunch has reached out to Tesla for more information.

Tesla Disbands Dojo Supercomputer Team in Blow to AI Effort

Tesla Inc. is disbanding its Dojo supercomputer team and its leader will depart the company, according to people familiar with the matter, upending the automaker's effort to develop in-house chips for driverless technology. Peter Bannon, who was heading up Dojo, is leaving and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has ordered the effort to be shut down, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. The team has lost about 20 workers recently to newly formed DensityAI, and remaining Dojo workers are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, the people said.

Tesla disbands Dojo supercomputer team, Bloomberg News reports

Aug 7 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab is disbanding its Dojo supercomputer team and its leader, Peter Bannon, will depart the company, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Dojo supercomputer was designed to process vast amounts of data and video from Tesla cars to train the automaker's autonomous-driving software. The team lost about 20 workers recently to newly formed DensityAI, and the remaining Dojo workers are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, the report said. The automaker also plans to increase its reliance on external technology partners such as Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab for compute, and Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab for chip manufacturing, as per the report. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Tesla, Nvidia, AMD and Samsung did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence * ADAS, AV & Safety * Software-Defined Vehicle * Sustainable & EV Supply Chain

Tesla shuts down Dojo supercomputer team, reassigns workers amid strategic AI shift, Bloomberg News reports

Aug 7 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO Elon Musk has ordered to shut down its Dojo supercomputer team, with team leader Peter Bannon departing the company, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Dojo supercomputer was designed to process vast amounts of data and video from Tesla EVs to train the automaker's autonomous-driving software. The team recently lost about 20 workers to newly formed DensityAI, and the remaining Dojo workers are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, the report said. Reuters could not independently verify the report. Over the past year, Tesla, amid a company-wide restructuring, experienced multiple executive departures and thousands of job cuts. Several key Tesla executives, including leaders in robotics, battery development, and public policy, have recently departed. Tesla has redirected its focus to AI-driven self-driving technology and robotics, with CEO Elon Musk pursuing an integration strategy across his business empire. In March, xAI acquired the social media platform X for $33 billion to bolster its chatbot training capabilities, while Tesla integrated the Grok chatbot into its vehicles. In July, Musk dismissed the possibility of a merger between Tesla and xAI, but announced plans for a shareholder vote to consider Tesla's investment in the AI startup. The automaker also plans to increase its reliance on external technology partners such as Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab for compute, and Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), opens new tab for chip manufacturing, as per Bloomberg. Tesla, Nvidia, AMD and Samsung did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Last month, Samsung secured a $16.5 billion deal to supply AI chips to Tesla, expected to power self-driving cars, humanoid robots and data centers. The deal is unlikely to resolve Tesla's immediate challenges, such as declining EV sales and efforts to scale its fledgling robotaxi service. Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence * ADAS, AV & Safety * Software-Defined Vehicle * Sustainable & EV Supply Chain

Tesla exec leading development of chip tech and Dojo supercomputer is leaving company

Bannon was leading the development of Tesla's Dojo supercomputer and reported directly to Musk. Bloomberg first reported on Bannon's departure, and added that Musk ordered his team to shut down, with engineers in the group getting reassigned to other initiatives. Tesla didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Since early last year, Musk has been trying to convince shareholders that Tesla, his only publicly traded business, is poised to become an an artificial intelligence and robotics powerhouse, and not just an electric vehicle company. A centerpiece of the transformation was Dojo, a custom-built supercomputer designed to process and train AI models drawing on the large amounts of video and other data captured by Tesla vehicles. Tesla's focus on Dojo and another computing cluster called Cortex were meant to improve the company's advanced driver assistance systems, and to enable Musk to finally deliver on his promise to turn existing Teslas into robotaxis. On Tesla's earnings call in July, Musk said the company expected its newest version of Dojo to be "operating at scale sometime next year, with scale being somewhere around 100,000 H-100 equivalents," referring to a supercomputer built using Nvidia's state of the art chips. Tesla recently struck a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to produce more of its own A16 chips with the company domestically. Tesla is running a test Robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and a related car service in San Francisco. In Austin, the company's vehicles require a human safety supervisor in the front passenger seat ready to intervene if necessary. In San Francisco, the car service is operated by human drivers, though invited users can hail a ride through a "Tesla Robotaxi" app. On the earnings call, Musk faced questions about how he sees Tesla and his AI company, xAI, keeping their distance given that they could be competing against one another for AI talent. Musk said the companies "are doing different things." He said, "xAI is doing like terabyte scale models and multi-terabyte scale models." Tesla uses "100x smaller models," he said, with the automaker focused on "real-world AI," for its cars and robots and xAI focused on developing software that strives for "artificial super intelligence." Musk also said that some engineers wouldn't join Tesla because "they wanted to work on AGI," one reason he said he formed a new company. Tesla has experienced an exodus of top talent this year due to a combination of job terminations and resignations. Milan Kovac, who was Tesla's head of Optimus robotics engineering, departed, as did David Lau, a vice president of software engineering, and Omead Afshar, Musk's former chief of staff.

Tesla's Dojo supercomputer looks dead as more execs leave for competing startup

Tesla's Dojo supercomputer project is reportedly over. Bloomberg reports that CEO Elon Musk is killing the project after a mass exodus of talent from the Dojo team to a competing startup. Dojo was the name of Tesla's in-house AI chip development to create supercomputers to train its AI models for self-driving. Tesla hired a bunch of top chip architects and tried to develop better AI accelerator chips to rely less on companies like NVIDIA, AMD, and others. It has been running into delays for years. We previously reported on significant setbacks. In 2018, Jim Keller, the famed chip architect who was first hired to lead Tesla's chip-making effort, left the company. Ganesh Venkataramanan succeeded him, but he left Tesla in 2023. For the last few years, Peter Bannon, who worked with Keller for years, has been leading Tesla's chip-making programs, but he is now reportedly also leaving the automaker. Bloomberg reports that Musk has "ordered the effort to be shut down.": Peter Bannon, who was heading up Dojo, is leaving and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has ordered the effort to be shut down, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. The team has lost about 20 workers recently to newly formed DensityAI, and remaining Dojo workers are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, the people said. DensityAI is a new startup currently in stealth mode, founded by several former Tesla employees, including Venkataramanan. It reportedly plans to build chips for AI data centers and robots, much like the Dojo program. The company recently hired 20 former Tesla employees who worked on Dojo. While the program appeared to be lagging behind for years as Tesla increasingly bought more compute power from NVIDIA, Musk has been claiming progress. The CEO said in June: Tesla Dojo AI training computer making progress. We start bringing Dojo 2 online later this year. It takes three major iterations for a new technology to be great. Dojo 2 is good, but Dojo 3 will be great. During Tesla's quarterly conference call in late July, the CEO claimed that Dojo 2 will be "operating at scale sometime next year." It's unclear whether the report is accurate or if it's an extrapolation from the talent exodus to Elon killing Dojo, or if Elon was lying just a few weeks ago. Alternatively, this development may be so recent that Elon went from being confident in Dojo a few weeks ago to disbanding the team working on it now. Either way, I think it's clear that the project has been lagging, and Tesla has been extremely dependent on chip suppliers rather than making its own. I think Dojo being likely dead is not a big loss for Tesla. When it comes to chip making, developing its own inference compute for onboard "AI computers" was always the more important project. TSMC is set to produce Tesla's new AI5 chip, which is coming soon, and we have recently learned that Samsung will be manufacturing its AI6 chip. I think the bigger concern from this report is that it's the latest example of an ongoing exodus of talent at Tesla.

Tesla disbands ambitious Dojo supercomputer team, shifts compute power to AMD and NVIDIA

TL;DR: Tesla has disbanded its in-house Dojo supercomputer team, with leader Peter Bannon departing, shifting focus to external partners like NVIDIA, AMD, and Samsung for AI chip manufacturing. Samsung's $16.5 billion contract through 2033 will produce Tesla's FSD chips, marking a strategic move in autonomous driving technology. Tesla has reportedly disbanded its Dojo supercomputer team, with its leader leaving the company and increasing its reliance on external technology partners like NVIDIA and AMD for compute power. In a new report from Bloomberg, we have heard that Tesla is disbanding its Dojo supercomputer team, which was working on in-house AI chips for driverless technology. Peter Bannon was leading Dojo, and is departing the company with Tesla CEO Elon Musk ordering the Dojo supercomputer effort to be shut down, according to Bloomberg's sources. The Dojo team lost around 20 workers recently to newly-formed DensityAI, with remaining Dojo workers being reassigned to other data center and compute projects inside Tesla. Tesla will reportedly increase its reliance on external technology partners like NVIDIA and AMD for its compute power requirements, and Samsung Electronics for chip manufacturing. Samsung recently signed a $16.5 billion foundry contract with Tesla that lasts through until 2033, where it will manufacture FSD chips for the company on American soil. Tesla's ambitious Dojo supercomputer was designed in-house, and used to train the machine learning models behind its Autopilot and FSD (Full Self-Driving) programs, as well as its Optimus humanoid robot. The Dojo supercomputer takes in all of the data captured by vehicles and processes it rapidly to improve its algorithms, with analysts saying Dojo could've been a key advantage, with Morgan Stanley estimating back in 2023 that it would add $500 billion to Tesla's value.

Tesla shuts down Dojo supercomputer team, reassigns workers amid AI shift: Report

Elon Musk has reportedly shut down Tesla's Dojo supercomputer team, with leader Peter Bannon leaving. This decision comes amid company restructuring and a shift towards AI-driven self-driving technology and robotics. Tesla will increase reliance on external partners like Nvidia, AMD, and Samsung for compute and chip manufacturing, focusing efforts on AI5 and AI6 chips for inference and training. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has ordered to shut down its Dojo supercomputer team, with team leader Peter Bannon departing the company, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The Dojo supercomputer was designed around custom training chips to process vast amounts of data and video from Tesla EVs to train the automaker's autonomous-driving software. Tesla did not reply to a Reuters request for comment. CEO Elon Musk said on X that it didn't make sense for Tesla to divide its resources and scale two different AI chips. Over the past year, Tesla, amid a company-wide restructuring, has seen multiple executive departures and thousands of job cuts. The company has redirected its focus to AI-driven self-driving technology and robotics, with CEO Elon Musk pursuing an integration strategy across his business empire. In March, xAI acquired the social media platform X for $33 billion to bolster its chatbot training capabilities, while Tesla integrated the Grok chatbot into its vehicles. The automaker also plans to increase its reliance on external technology partners such as Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices for compute, and Samsung Electronics for chip manufacturing, as per the Bloomberg report. Last month, Samsung secured a $16.5 billion deal to supply AI chips to Tesla, expected to power self-driving cars, humanoid robots and data centers. Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier said that Samsung's new chip factory in Taylor, Texas would make Tesla's next-generation AI6 chip. While no timeline was provided for AI6 chip production, Musk has previously said that next-generation AI5 chips will be produced at the end of 2026, suggesting AI6 would follow. "The Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips will be excellent for inference and at least pretty good for training. All effort is focused on that", Musk said in an X post late Thursday. Musk also said that in a supercomputer cluster, it would make sense to put many AI5/AI6 chips. "One could call that Dojo 3, I suppose", he said. The Dojo team recently lost about 20 workers to newly formed DensityAI, and the remaining workers are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla, the Bloomberg report said. Nvidia declined to comment on the Bloomberg report, while AMD and Samsung did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

Tesla Has Reportedly Abandoned Its 'Ambitious' Dojo Supercomputer Plans as Project Head Peter Bannon Spins Out His Own AI Startup, Taking the Core Team With Him

Tesla has abandoned the race for creating its Dojo supercomputers for FSD and other features, as the firm now plans to increase reliance on external partners like NVIDIA. Well, Tesla's Dojo project was one of the first in the market to tap into the supercomputer segment on a more mainstream level. The company had been developing its hardware through partners like TSMC, and the goal was to accumulate as much computing power as possible to enable Tesla's FSD, along with other autonomous projects like humanoid robots. Now, based on a report by Bloomberg, it is revealed that Tesla is abandoning its Dojo supercomputer plans, as the team lead, Peter Bannon is leaving the company to pursue his own startup, called DensityAI. It is claimed that the Dojo team lost around 20 employees to DensityAI. With the dwindling workforce, the remaining employee count has now been shifted to data center projects within the company. More importantly, Tesla will now increase its reliance on external partners such as NVIDIA for its computing needs, so ultimately, the company won't compromise on the computing power needed for projects like FSD. Apart from mounting competition in the AI markets, one of the main reasons why Dojo has been abandoned is the massive talent drain the team has faced. The report states that Dojo's former head, Ganesh Venkataramanan, has founded DensityAI, which will also be joined by several ex-Tesla employees. The drain has convinced Musk to shut off the venture, but given that Musk is highly optimistic about the work being done at xAI, he eventually won't face hurdles in his plans to dominate the AI space. xAI is building up massive hyperscalers in the US, which would feed the computing needs necessary for AI-focused features needed for Tesla. Given that Dojo is abandoned, it would be interesting to see what happens with the recent contract signed by Tesla and Samsung for the AI6 chips, which are also part of the company's pursuit of AI semiconductors.

Tesla Scraps Dojo Supercomputer AI Team As Elon Musk Abandons Internal Chip Effort: Report - NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD)

Tesla Inc. TSLA has pulled the plug on its Dojo Supercomputer team, responsible for developing in-house AI capabilities, including self-driving chips and AI model training efforts. Restructuring Teams, Talent Poached And A Shift To Outsource AI Development Dojo Supercomputer's leader, Peter Bannon, will leave the company as CEO Elon Musk ordered the department to be shut down, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. The report also outlined that over 20 employees had departed Tesla to join DensityAI, a newly formed company founded by former Tesla executives, including Ganesh Venkataramanan. Musk, meanwhile, has ordered a reshuffling of the remaining Dojo team as they would be reassigned to other departments within Tesla, the report suggests. The report also highlights that Tesla would look at companies like Nvidia Corp NVDA, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD and Samsung Electronics SSNLF for its AI needs. Tesla did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment. Tesla's Chip Deal With Samsung, Planned Robotaxi Expansion The news comes as Tesla announced a deal with Samsung worth over $16.5 billion. The deal would see the Korean giant build AI6 chips for Tesla, powering the company's next-gen self-driving systems. Meanwhile, Tesla's plans to roll out robotaxis in multiple cities to meet Musk's target of serving over half the population of the U.S. could face some challenges. The company, despite announcing its ride-hailing service expansion in the San Francisco Bay Area, can't operate Robotaxis in the state as it does not have a permit. Elon Musk's $29 Billion Pay Package And Dwindling Sales Elsewhere, Tesla announced it will kick off compensation proceedings for Musk, awarding the CEO over 96 million company shares amounting to $29 billion in value as the company puts confusion over Musk's compensation to rest. However, Tesla sales have continued to plunge, with the company experiencing double-digit declines in multiple markets like the UK, as well as France, Sweden and Denmark. Tesla scores well on Momentum, Quality and Growth metrics, but offers poor Value. For more such insights, sign up for Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings today! Check out more of Benzinga's Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link. Read Next: Elon Musk Says $150K Investment In Tesla 'Probably' Makes You A Millionaire Image Via Shutterstock AMDAdvanced Micro Devices Inc$173.316.25%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum86.05Growth97.69Quality71.99Value12.16Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewNVDANVIDIA Corp$181.601.21%SSNLFSamsung Electronics Co Ltd$42.480.34%TSLATesla Inc$320.920.32%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs