Tesla CEO Elon Musk is laying out a multi-year silicon roadmap as the company pushes deeper into making AI hardware more efficient.
In a new post on X, Musk says Tesla will begin testing of AI5 chips ahead of volume rollout, describing a staged ramp that positions Tesla to expand compute supply over the next several years.
He also says Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) will work on “slightly different versions” of AI5 chips.
“Slightly different versions of the Tesla AI5 chip will be made at TSMC and Samsung simply because they translate designs to physical form differently, but the goal is that our AI software works identically.
We will have samples and maybe a small number of units in 2026, but high volume production is only possible in 2027.”
The AI5 chip was initially unveiled in 2024 at Tesla’s shareholder meeting. It’s the latest iteration of the electric vehicle maker’s Autopilot hardware that processes signals needed for self-driving features. In July, Tesla signed a $16.5 billion deal to source chips from Samsung Electronics.
At the time, Musk said Samsung’s giant new Texas fab will be dedicated to manufacturing Tesla’s AI6 chip.
In its Q3 2025 earnings call, Musk said Tesla wants to produce an overabundance of AI5 chips, but notes that it is not looking to take Nvidia out of the equation.
“Our explicit goal is to have an oversupply of AI5 chips. If we have too many AI5 chips for the cars and robots, we can always put them in the data center. We already use AI4 for training in our data center. We use a combination of AI4 and Nvidia hardware.
We’re not about to replace Nvidia, to be clear, but we do use both in combination: AI4 and Nvidia hardware, and the AI5 excess production can always be put in our data centers. Nvidia keeps improving. The challenge that they have is that they’ve got to satisfy a large range of requirements from a lot of customers.”
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