Global richest man Elon Musk sent a message on Saturday, October 10, that although he does not yet understand chip manufacturing, he is confident that with the expertise of his companies in custom equipment manufacturing, he will find a way to produce “chips better than anyone else’s”.
According to Bloomberg, Musk attended the “X Takeover” event via video link last Saturday to address customers and investors gathered outside the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin, Texas. He stated that although he currently does not know “how to manufacture microchips, we will find a way”.
During his speech, Musk noted that when he visited competitors’ production facilities, he did not see much custom equipment, whereas his company has extensive experience in manufacturing such equipment, which enables them to improve chip manufacturing processes.
“I think, specifically, it is one of the hardest things to do in the world,” Musk said. “I don’t want to be arrogant or presumptuous, but I think we might figure out how to make chips better than anyone else. Seriously. I don’t know how long it will take us, maybe several years.”
Musk is preparing to establish a Terafab chip factory in Grimes County, Texas, in collaboration with Intel Corp., with an initial investment exceeding $15 billion. The facility will have a total construction area of 100 million square feet, to be built in stages, covering approximately 3000 acres, while SpaceX currently controls over 13,000 acres of land.
On Sunday, October 11, Musk reposted a video speech on social media. He emphasized that the goal of the Terafab factory is to accelerate chip design.
“Within a year, how many chip designs, manufacturing, and testing can you complete? Nowadays, it usually takes about two years for a significant chip from design to scaled production… and we hope to achieve a speed of completing approximately 10 chip designs per year,” he said.
The global richest man previously stated, “Terafab is bringing cutting-edge manufacturing technology to the U.S., creating thousands of high-paying jobs in the ‘Lone Star State,’ and enabling us to mass-produce AI chips for use on Earth and in space.”
Musk has been strengthening the integration of his companies’ artificial intelligence businesses. Earlier this year, his SpaceX company acquired the AI startup xAI he founded, aiming to drive the construction of space data centers. Subsequently, SpaceX went public through the largest IPO in history in June this year.