Elon Musk wants to build 50 times more chips than the world currently produces, using ‘new physics’

Elon Musk has put Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI in harness to build a chip fabrication outfit called “Terafab” capable of producing a terawatt’s worth of computing power each year, then send most of it into space.

In a Sunday afternoon presentation, Musk said the world’s chipmakers currently produce 20 gigawatts’ worth of compute power each year, and that whatever new capacity his key suppliers Nvidia, Samsung, and Micron produce, he will buy.

But he can’t see how they produce the Terawatt of compute power he wants each year, so he has built an “advanced fab” in Austin, Texas, that he says can produce “any kind of chip,” and lithography masks.

Musk said his companies have developed a recursive process that allows rapid chip production, plus frequent re-designs to improve performance.

He mentioned “some very interesting new physics” that he is “confident will work. It's just a ...