Elon Musk announced over the weekend that Tesla intends to revive work on Dojo3, the third-generation AI chip project previously shelved by the electric vehicle maker. However, this time, Dojo3 will not target training autonomous driving models on Earth. Musk stated it will focus on "space-based AI computing."
This move comes five months after Tesla effectively shut down its Dojo project. Following the departure of Dojo lead Peter Bannon, the company disbanded its Dojo supercomputer team. Approximately 20 Dojo employees also left, joining the emerging AI infrastructure startup DensityAI, founded by former Dojo lead Ganesh Venkataramanan and former Tesla employees Bill Chang and Ben Floering.
At the time of Dojo's closure, Bloomberg reported Tesla planned to increase its computational reliance on partners like Nvidia and AMD, and chip manufacturing from Samsung, rather than continuing to develop in-house chips. Musk's latest comments suggest another strategic pivot.
The billionaire executive and major Republican donor indicated in a post on X that the decision to revive Dojo is based on the current state of its internal chip roadmap, noting that Tesla's AI5 chip design is "in good shape."
Tesla's AI5 chip, manufactured by TSMC, is designed to power Tesla's autonomous driving features and the Optimus humanoid robot. Last summer, Tesla signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to develop its AI6 chip, promising to power Tesla vehicles and Optimus while also supporting high-performance AI training in data centers.
Musk stated on Sunday, "AI7/Dojo3 will be for space-based AI computing," positioning the resurrected project more as a moonshot initiative.
To this end, Tesla is preparing to rebuild the team disbanded months ago. Musk directly recruited engineers for the same roles, writing, "If you are interested in working on the world's highest-volume chip, please send a note to AI_Chips@Tesla.com with three bullet points on the hardest technical problem you've solved."
The timing of this announcement is notable. At CES 2026, Nvidia unveiled Alpamayo, an open-source autonomous driving AI model directly challenging Tesla's FSD software. Musk commented in an X interview that solving the long tail of rare edge cases in driving is "extremely difficult," adding, "I genuinely hope they succeed."
Musk and several other AI executives believe the future of data centers may lie beyond Earth, as the planet's power grids are under extreme strain. Axios recently reported that Musk's rival, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, is also enthusiastic about launching data centers into orbit. Musk holds an advantage among his peers as he already controls a launch vehicle company.
According to Axios, Musk plans to utilize the upcoming SpaceX IPO to fund his vision of launching a constellation of computational satellites using Starship. These satellites would operate in perpetual sunlight, collecting solar energy 24 hours a day.
