Elon Musk is once again turning the spotlight on Tesla’s increasingly aggressive push into custom AI silicon. In a new series of posts on X, the Tesla CEO revealed that the company is “close” to taping out its next-generation AI5 chip, with work on its successor, AI6, already underway.
“Most people don’t know that Tesla has had an advanced AI chip and board engineering team for many years,” Musk wrote, adding, “That team has already designed and deployed several million AI chips in our cars and data centers. These chips are what enable Tesla to be the leader in real-world AI.”
AI5, also referred to as Hardware 5 or HW5, is Tesla’s next major leap in custom silicon. Designed for use across vehicles, data centers, and robotics, the chip promises up to a 50x total improvement over today’s AI4 hardware. Musk has been sharing weekly progress updates on Tesla’s AI chip development, saying last week that the company plans to begin installing AI5 chips in production EVs by mid-2027. AI5 will be jointly produced by TSMC and Samsung in the U.S., with volume production scheduled for 2027.
Musk also said the company is already building the generation that comes after. “The current version in cars is AI4, we are close to taping out AI5 and are starting work on AI6. Our goal is to bring a new AI chip design to volume production every 12 months. We expect to build chips at higher volumes ultimately than all other AI chips combined. Read that sentence again, as I’m not kidding.”
AI6, expected in 2028, will be produced through Tesla’s massive $16.5 billion deal with Samsung. Musk previously said AI5 will be “the best inference chip of any kind,” while AI6 could become “the best AI chip by far.”
Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy echoed Musk’s enthusiasm, highlighting the company’s vertically integrated approach: “These chips are heavily co-designed with the @Tesla_AI software teams to achieve incredible performance… AI4 can process and understand a million pixels of streaming video within ~1 ms.”
Musk also emphasized his direct involvement: “I’m deeply involved in the chip design and meet with the engineering team every Tuesday and Saturday. The Saturday meetings… will no longer be needed in a few months when AI5 is taped out.”
As Tesla ramps toward AI-powered robotics like Optimus and prepares for a world increasingly driven by real-time neural nets, Musk is encouraging top-tier chip design talent to apply. “Send an email with three bullet points describing evidence of your exceptional ability to AI_Chips@Tesla.com,” he said, adding that Tesla is “particularly interested in applying cutting edge AI to chip design.”
With AI5 development nearly complete and AI6 already in motion, Tesla’s chip roadmap is accelerating — and Musk’s latest updates suggest the company intends to compete head-to-head with the largest silicon vendors on the planet.
