The Cortex AI-training supercluster at Tesla headquarters in Austin, Texas.
Elon Musk shared a video on Monday showing the inside of Cortex, Tesla’s new AI training supercluster, which is being built at its headquarters in Austin, Texas.
In an X post, the CEO described Cortex as “the giant new AI training supercluster being built at Tesla HQ in Austin to solve real-world AI.”
The 20-second clip offers a glimpse inside the massive facility, revealing rows of servers packed with Nvidia H100 GPUs.
These powerful graphics cards are essential for training large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s PaLM 2.
Tesla is developing its Texas Gigafactory to house a cutting-edge AI supercomputer cluster.
The expansion project, which is nearing completion, will initially incorporate 50,000 Nvidia GPUs alongside Tesla’s proprietary AI hardware and is expected to advance Tesla’s Full Self Driving.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk estimates that the Gigafactory supercomputer will initially draw 130 megawatts upon deployment and potentially scale up to 500 megawatts.
Remarkably, this is not Musk’s only foray into supercomputing. Parallel to this project is another multi-billion dollar supercomputer cluster for xAI, the billionaire’s artificial intelligence startup.
This new supercomputer— pipped to become one of the world’s largest GPU-powered AI clusters with an initial order of 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs— will power the next version of GrokAI, the AI chatbot available to premium subscribers of X.
Dell and Supermicro (SMC) will provide the servers for the xAI supercomputer, as confirmed by Dell chairman and CEO Michael Dell on Twitter. Additionally, plans are in place to upgrade the system to 300,000 Nvidia B200 GPUs by next summer.
Tesla’s artificial intelligence efforts are critical in developing two of the company’s most important products: Full Self-Driving (FSD) and Optimus, a humanoid robot.
The feasibility of Tesla’s planned Robotaxi network, which Elon Musk outlined in Master Plan, Part Deux way back in 2016, is highly dependent on the success of FSD.
Optimus, meanwhile, has the potential to change numerous industries, such as manufacturing.
Cortex is a very large supercomputer cluster, so much so that the facility required a whole new extension to Giga Texas’ main building.
Drone flyovers of the Giga Texas facility show that work is underway to build a large supercomputer cooling system near Cortex.
The Giga Texas-based supercluster is not the only supercomputer that Tesla will build for its FSD efforts.
Earlier this month, Tesla signed an agreement with Buffalo, New York, to extend the company’s commitment to operate Giga New York for five more years until 2034.
As part of the new agreement, Tesla will invest $500 million in a Dojo supercomputer project in Buffalo, with $350 million invested by the end of next year.
As per Tesla’s previous presentations, Dojo is expected to help develop autonomous driving systems.
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Kapil Kajal Kapil Kajal is an award-winning journalist with a diverse portfolio spanning defense, politics, technology, crime, environment, human rights, and foreign policy. His work has been featured in publications such as Janes, National Geographic, Al Jazeera, Rest of World, Mongabay, and Nikkei. Kapil holds a dual bachelor's degree in Electrical, Electronics, and Communication Engineering and a master’s diploma in journalism from the Institute of Journalism and New Media in Bangalore.
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