Governor Kathy Hochul said Friday that Tesla will invest $500 million to develop a “Dojo” supercomputer at its Buffalo, New York, facility, days after CEO Elon Musk dubbed the project a “long shot.”
Tesla chose New York because of its stable power supply, excellent talent pipeline, and usable area for the project, Hochul’s office said.
Dojo, a supercomputer introduced at Tesla’s 2021 “AI Day” event, is intended to assist the firm in constructing a self-driving car. Tesla aims to utilize the supercomputer to handle massive amounts of electric car video footage to train the AI in Full Self-Driving Beta, its most advanced driver assistance software. Last year, Musk stated Tesla would spend “well over $1 billion” on Dojo.
Tesla’s Dojo project in Buffalo is the latest adjustment in its ambitions for the region, which has become a fiasco for New York. Tesla bought SolarCity, formerly “Gigafactory 2,” in 2016. The state has already invested $750 million in the facility. Tesla promised solar roof tiles but failed to scale up production. Once Panasonic left the facility in 2020, Tesla hired personnel to categorize training data for its less advanced Autopilot software.
Musk stated in April that the Dojo supercomputer project was a risky investment with potential for multi-hundred billion-dollar returns.
He reaffirmed it this week on an analyst call. “It’s not a sure thing at all. It’s a high-risk, high-payoff program,” he remarked. We’re scaling up and planning Dojo 1.5, 2, 3, etc. So, it has promise, but it’s big enough to be risky and profitable.”
Hochul’s press presentation cheered the $500 million investment, but Musk dismissed it in a social media post on X, saying the business will spend far more on Nvidia hardware in 2024.
“The governor is correct that this is a Dojo Supercomputer, but $500 million, while obviously a large sum of money, is only equivalent to a $10,000 H100 system from Nvidia,” Musk remarked on X. “Tesla will spend more on Nvidia hardware this year. Being competitive in AI now requires several billion dollars each year.
