- Tesla's "Cortex" supercomputer cluster is being built in Austin, Texas, to support autonomous cars and humanoid robots.
- The supercomputer will be powered by over 100,000 Nvidia H100 and H200 chips.
- The facility appears similar to other data centers, with thick cables and loud cooling systems.
As its lead in the electric vehicle arms race starts to wane, Tesla's solution for staying ahead in the future is to focus on autonomous vehicles. But how it supposedly aims to make cars drive themselves is different from other players out there.
It involves gathering colossal amounts of video footage from millions of its electric cars worldwide, processing that information at AI-powered data centers and then packaging that into software updates before sending them over-the-air with the goal of making Teslas drive like humans. To make this a reality, Tesla has started building giant data centers at its Gigafactories.
One of these facilities is being built on the south side of the company's headquarters in Austin, Texas. The system at this complex is called Cortex, a "supercomputer cluster" that will run on more than 100,000 Nvidia H100 and H200 graphics processing units (GPUs) for video training of the Optimus humanoid robots and the Full-Self Driving (FSD) system.
CEO Elon Musk shared a video of Cortex this morning. Even though the facility appears similar to other data centers, the whole environment gives off a high-tech, futuristic vibe. It's one of our first-ever looks at the supposed technology behind the technology.
There appear to be countless aisles of black server racks with tightly stacked hardware placed behind glass doors and casings. Thick bundles of red and blue cables seem to snake between the racks and there's a loud hum, possibly emanating from the overhead cooling systems.
Speaking of cooling, the facility has gargantuan fans on the roof, probably the size of an aircraft propeller, or even bigger—Tesla is using a patented cooling system for the same. Moreover, the Texas supercomputer will apparently require 500 megawatts of power in the future. A Duke University study said a sports stadium can consume 5 MW of electricity during a game. So 500 MW could power about 100 such stadiums at once, which highlights the power-hungry nature of AI data centers.
This isn't Tesla's only supercomputer. The company is also building its "Dojo" supercomputer at its New York Gigafactory, also for video training of the AI-based FSD systems in its future EVs. The head honcho claimed early this year that Tesla is investing $500 million in New York to build out this facility, which is also producing the NACS adapters for owners of Ford, Rivian and other brands.
"Five hundred million, while obviously a large sum of money, is only equivalent to a 10k H100 system from Nvidia," Musk said at the time. "Tesla will spend more than that on Nvidia hardware this year. The table stakes for being competitive in AI are at least several billion dollars per year at this point." (However, Musk's decision to prioritize sending Nvidia chips to social media platform X—which is privately held and technically unrelated to Tesla—raised some eyebrows earlier this year.)
Another one in Memphis is already operational. It's being expanded at the moment and when complete it would be "the most powerful AI-training cluster in the world," according to Musk.
Since announcing a pivot to AI and autonomy, the company's passenger car and public charging businesses have taken a back seat. Apart from the refreshed Model 3 and the Cybertruck, the rest of Tesla's line-up is aging fast and that's somewhat reflected in its sales slip. Musk wants Tesla to be a tech company building robotaxis, humanoid robots and AI.
For now, Tesla's FSD has shown countless flaws in real-world driving conditions and it doesn't quite merit the FSD label yet. The automaker also hasn't dealt with who or what would be liable in the event of a robotaxi crash, and it faces numerous investigations—including a U.S. Department of Justice probe—into how it has sold this technology to investors and the public.
We may get some answers at Tesla's robotaxi debut event on Oct. 10.
Do you know anything about Tesla's latest plans? Contact the author; we are happy to speak securely and anonymously. suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
