Elon Musk reportedly diverted thousands of AI chips from Tesla to X

Jun 04, 2024 09:34 PM - 5 months ago 53582

Elon Musk ordered thousands of Nvidia-made AI chips destined for Tesla to beryllium diverted to his societal media institution X, according to emails from nan chipmaker obtained by CNBC. The move has nan imaginable to hold Tesla’s acquisition of $500 cardinal worthy of processors by months, nan outlet reports.

Tesla is expected to beryllium stocking up connected Nvidia’s H100 artificial intelligence chips successful bid to powerfulness its translator into “a leader successful AI and robotics,” according to Musk. In an Tesla earnings telephone earlier this year, he said nan institution would summation its acquisition of H100s from 35,000 to 85,000 by nan extremity of this year. And later, in a station connected X, Musk said that Tesla would walk $10 cardinal “in mixed training and conclusion AI, nan second being chiefly successful car.”

But emails by Nvidia labor obtained by CNBC propose that Musk is exaggerating nan acquisition of AI chips for Tesla. Instead, galore of those processors are now en way to X — and chiefly its AI subsidiary, xAI.

“Elon prioritizing X H100 GPU cluster deployment astatine X versus Tesla by redirecting 12k of shipped H100 GPUs primitively slated for Tesla to X instead,” an Nvidia memo from December said, according to CNBC. “In exchange, original X orders of 12k H100 slated for Jan and June to beryllium redirected to Tesla.” In follow-up messages, Nvidia labor noted that Musk’s comments during nan net telephone and successful consequent posts connected X “conflicts pinch bookings.”

The move to divert AI chips from Tesla to X could rankle Tesla investors, who are betting connected Musk delivering his committedness of afloat autonomous vehicles. The institution plans to unveil its first robotaxi conveyance astatine an event successful August. Meanwhile, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving driver-assist features, which service arsenic a bedrock for nan company’s autonomy work, person travel nether scrutiny for hundreds of crashes, dozens of which person resulted successful fatalities.

Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is racing against OpenAI, Google, and others to nutrient useful applications for generative AI and their underlying ample connection models. Last month, nan institution announced a $6 cardinal backing round connected nan committedness of precocious products and nan infrastructure to support them.

Nvidia has go nan 3rd astir valuable institution successful nan world connected nan request of its GPUs, which powerfulness overmuch of nan AI ambitions of different companies. With unreality computing and generative AI, customers “are consuming each GPU that’s retired there,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said connected an net telephone successful May, according to CNBC. The institution reported 200 percent gross maturation during nan past quarter.

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