Tesla’s in-house AI chip roadmap is accelerating rapidly, with Elon Musk confirming that the company’s next-generation AI5 chip is nearly complete, while work on AI6 is already underway.
“Our AI5 chip design is almost done and AI6 is in early stages, but there will be AI7, AI8, AI9 … aiming for a 9 month design cycle,” Musk wrote in an X post on Saturday morning, adding a bold hiring pitch: “Join us to work on what I predict will be the highest volume AI chips in the world by far!”
AI5 — also known as Hardware 5 (HW5) — is Tesla’s next major leap in artificial intelligence silicon, designed entirely in-house for use across vehicles, data centers, and robotics. The chip is expected to deliver up to a 50x improvement over the current AI4 hardware powering Full Self-Driving. Musk has been regularly sharing progress updates, saying in late November that the chip was “close” but cautioning that Tesla won’t begin installing AI5 into production vehicles until mid-2027.
Production of AI5 will be handled jointly by TSMC and Samsung at U.S.-based facilities, with Tesla targeting volume manufacturing in 2027. Musk has previously described AI5 as “the best inference chip of any kind” in the world, positioning it as a cornerstone of Tesla’s autonomy ambitions.
Beyond AI5, Musk’s comments suggest Tesla’s chip cadence is about to accelerate dramatically. AI6 is expected to follow in 2028, with Tesla already locking in a massive $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to manufacture the chip in the U.S. Musk has gone even further, claiming AI6 could become “the best AI chip by far,” not just within automotive applications but across the broader AI industry.
The chips won’t be limited to vehicles. Musk has said Tesla’s custom silicon will also power the company’s Optimus humanoid robots and potentially Neuralink hardware, reinforcing Tesla’s strategy of vertically integrating AI across multiple product lines.
Musk also used the moment to praise Tesla’s internal AI team, responding to a post about the group patenting a novel technique to run advanced AI models on cheaper hardware. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” he wrote. “The @Tesla_AI team is epicly hardcore. No one can match Tesla’s real-world AI.”
With AI7, AI8, and AI9 already being teased, Tesla’s silicon roadmap is shaping up to be one of the most aggressive in the industry — one that could redefine how AI hardware is designed, built, and deployed at scale.
