Tesla is embarking on a new $500 million project to construct a massive Dojo supercomputer cluster at Gigafactory New York in Buffalo.
Dojo is a cutting-edge supercomputer developed by Tesla exclusively for AI training using videos.
The project has faced significant delays, but it appeared to gain traction last year when the first Dojo cluster went live in the summer.
However, there was news that Tesla recently parted ways with some of the program’s top leadership.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, shared during Tesla’s earnings call that the project is a “long shot” with “not a high probability” of success.
I would think of Dojo as a long shot. It’s a long shot worth taking because the payoff is potentially very high. But it’s not something that is a high probability.
At the same time, Musk confirmed that Tesla is heavily investing in NVIDIA AI processors to build traditional supercomputer clusters for powering its AI initiatives.
These new comments about Dojo seem to have dampened enthusiasm for the program among many Tesla shareholders.
That’s why it’s surprising to hear about Tesla’s $500 million investment in a new Dojo cluster just a few days later.
New York State Governor Kathy Hochul announced the new project in Buffalo, where Tesla operates Gigafactory New York.
Musk swiftly confirmed the news, but added that Tesla is investing even more in NVIDIA hardware:
The governor is correct that this is a Dojo Supercomputer, but $500M, while obviously a large sum of money, is only equivalent to a 10k H100 system from Nvidia. Tesla will spend more than that on Nvidia hardware this year. The table stakes for being competitive in AI are at least several billion dollars per year at this point.
The CEO also confirmed that Tesla is planning to begin procuring hardware from AMD as well.
Tesla is making significant investments in all available processing power to support its AI programs, including Full Self-Driving and Optimus.
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