Tesla Disbands Dojo Supercomputer Team: Key Executive Departs
Tesla has recently disbanded its Dojo supercomputer team, marking a significant setback to its AI development efforts. Pete Bannon, the company’s vice president of hardware design engineering who spearheaded the Dojo project, is parting ways with Tesla after joining from Apple in 2016.
CEO Elon Musk has commanded the project to be terminated, leading to about 20 workers transitioning to the newly formed AI startup, DensityAI. The Dojo supercomputer was engineered to process video data from Tesla vehicles to enhance the company’s autonomous driving technology.
This project was once considered pivotal to Tesla’s multibillion-dollar AI transformation, with analysts predicting it could potentially boost Tesla’s market value by $500 billion.
The remaining Dojo team members are being reassigned to other data center and compute projects within Tesla. The company is planning to augment its reliance on external partners including Nvidia and AMD for compute power, and Samsung for chip manufacturing.
- Tesla has recently inked a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to manufacture its next-generation AI6 chips through 2033.