Tesla AI5 AI chip taped out in partnership with Samsung and TSMC

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce that Tesla has completed the design of its AI5 chip for Full Self-Driving (FSD). Musk congratulated the Tesla AI team on the successful tape-out of AI5 and also shared an image of the full chip. We covered the rumors surrounding AI5 production earlier this year, and now it seems the chip is on track for mass production.

The AI5 chip is an AI-focused processor that follows HW4, but Tesla has changed the nomenclature to adopt the "AI" naming scheme going forward. This chip will be employed in Tesla's next-gen Full Self-Driving (FSD) suite. Musk claims that AI5 will be a very capable solution, with performance equivalent to NVIDIA's Hopper architecture. He further adds that a dual AI5 SoC setup can rival NVIDIA Blackwell in performance.

In the image of the chip Musk posted, we can see the DRAM chips sourced from SK Hynix. There are two rows of SK Hynix LPDDR5X memory on each side of the chip, with each row having three modules for a total of 12. If these are 16GB modules, that translates to 192GB of LPDDR5X memory for each AI5 SoC.

Musk also thanked Samsung and TSMC for their support in production, which is apt, since the chips will be produced at Samsung's plant in Taylor, Texas, and at TSMC's plant in Arizona. This two-pronged production strategy is put in place to diversify the supply chain. Official information on the production timeline remains unknown, but industry experts are eyeing high-volume production in late 2026 or early 2027.

As confirmed by Tesla's CEO, work is already underway on the next-generation AI6 chip and Dojo3. For Tesla, the AI5 tape-out was the main milestone, as Musk claimed it was almost "existential" for the company. Now, it can be sent to Samsung and TSMC for production. While full specifications of the chip are not yet known, Elon's previous discussions point towards a 40x improvement over the HW4 chip, along with new features.