CHONGQING, CHINA – APRIL 20: In this photo illustration, the Tesla logo is displayed on a smartphone screen, with the company\u2019s stock market performance and candlestick chart visible in the background, highlighting Tesla\u2019s financial movements and its prominent role in the electric vehicle, renewable energy, and autonomous driving sectors, on April 20, 2025, in Chongqing, China. (Photo by Cheng Xin\/Getty Images) | Image Credits:Cheng Xin \/ Getty Images <\/p>\n
Elon Musk said over the long weekend that Tesla aims to restart work on Dojo3, the electric vehicle company\u2019s previously abandoned<\/a> third-generation AI chip. Only this time, Dojo3 won\u2019t be aimed at training self-driving models on Earth. Instead, Musk says it will be dedicated to \u201cspace-based AI compute.\u201d<\/p>\n The move comes five months after Tesla effectively shut down its Dojo effort<\/a>. The company disbanded the team behind its Dojo supercomputer following the departure of Dojo lead Peter Bannon. Around 20 Dojo workers also left to join DensityAI<\/a>, a new AI infrastructure startup founded by former Dojo head Ganesh Venkataramanan<\/a> and ex-Tesla employees Bill Chang and Ben Floering.<\/p>\n At the time of Dojo\u2019s shutdown, Bloomberg reported Tesla planned to increase its reliance on Nvidia and other partners like AMD for compute and Samsung for chip manufacturing, rather than continue developing its own custom silicon. Musk\u2019s latest comments suggest the strategy has shifted again.<\/p>\n The billionaire executive and Republican megadonor<\/a> said in a post on X<\/a> the decision to revive Dojo was based on the state of its in-house chip roadmap, noting that Tesla\u2019s AI5 chip design was \u201cin good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n Tesla\u2019s AI5 chip, made by TSMC, was designed to power the automaker\u2019s automated driving features and Optimus humanoid robots. Last summer, Tesla signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung<\/a> to build its AI6 chips that promise to power Tesla vehicles and Optimus, as well as enable high-performance AI training in data centers.<\/p>\n \u201cAI7\/Dojo3 will be for space-based AI compute,\u201d Musk said<\/a> on Sunday, positioning the resurrected project as more of a moonshot.<\/p>\n To achieve that, Tesla is now gearing up to rebuild the team it dismantled months ago. Musk used the same post to recruit engineers directly, writing:\u00a0\u201cIf you\u2019re interested in working on what will be the highest volume chips in the world, send a note to AI_Chips@Tesla.com with 3 bullet points on the toughest technical problems you\u2019ve solved.\u201d<\/p>\n The timing of the announcement is notable. At CES 2026, Nvidia unveiled <\/a>Alpamayo<\/a>, an open source AI model for autonomous driving that directly challenges Tesla\u2019s FSD software. Musk commented on X that solving the long tail of rare edge cases in driving is \u201csuper hard,\u201d adding: \u201cI honestly hope they succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk and several other AI executives have argued the future of data centers may lie off-planet, since Earth\u2019s power grids are already strained to the max. Axios recently reported<\/a> Musk rival and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also excited by the prospect of putting data centers into orbit. Musk has an edge over his peers because he already controls the launch vehicles.<\/p>\n