What we know about Tesla’s Terafab project, which Musk says is launching in a few days
Elon Musk says the goal is to produce 100 billion to 200 billion AI chips a year.
On Saturday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company’s massive chip manufacturing project, Terafab, would launch in seven days. The goal is to build a semiconductor fabrication plant that produces 100 billion to 200 billion AI chips annually to help power the company’s autonomous vehicles and robots.
Musk, who floated the idea of Terafab at the company’s shareholder meeting last year, has said Tesla needs to manufacture its own chips because other chip suppliers would not be able to reach the company’s future demand. “Even when we look at the best-case output of all of our key suppliers,” Musk said on the company’s last earnings call, “it’s not enough.” He estimated chip supply would be a “limiting factor” for Tesla’s growth in about three or four years.
Terafab Project launches in 7 days
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 14, 2026
Tesla currently designs some of its own chips but relies on foundries such as Samsung and TSMC to produce them.
The new project could cost an estimated $20 billion in addition to the company’s ballooning $20 billion capital expenditure forecast for 2026, according to Tesla’s CFO.
While Musk has said the factory would manufacture “logic, memory and packaging domestically,” he hasn’t specified where. One possible location would be near Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, where the company has been continually expanding its footprint.
