Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said he will soon begin plans to build an ultra-large factory to produce artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
On the 14th (local time), Musk said on the social networking service X (formerly Twitter) that "the Terafab project will begin within seven days."
"Fab" is a term meaning a semiconductor manufacturing plant and is classified as a megafab, gigafab, and so on, depending on wafer production capacity. The Terafab Musk mentioned is interpreted as a semiconductor plant on a much larger scale than a gigafab, which has a wafer production capacity of more than 100,000 per month.
However, Musk did not disclose details such as the exact plant location, investment size, or construction schedule.
Earlier, at Tesla's earnings conference call in January, he said the company needs its own chip manufacturing facility to prepare for potential semiconductor supply constraints within the next three to four years.
At the time, Musk said, "Terafab will be a very large semiconductor manufacturing facility that includes logic, memory, and packaging," adding, "If we do not pursue this, we will have no choice but to rely on chip suppliers' output."
He particularly noted that memory chips could become a major supply bottleneck in AI systems.
He also said the plant would be built in the United States and would serve to hedge against geopolitical risks, but did not explain the specifics. At the time, Musk also mentioned the possibility of collaborating with U.S. chipmaker Intel, but any connection to the current Terafab plan has not been confirmed.
Meanwhile, Musk has moved to reorganize the AI corporations xAI, which has recently seen co-founders depart. He hired developers Andrew Milich and Jason Ginzburg from the AI coding startup "Cursor," and said, "Because xAI was not built properly at first, we are rebuilding it from the ground up."