Tesla uses so much Nvidia hardware in its self-driving training system that the chipmaker can’t keep up with the demand, CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday.
“We’re using a lot of Nvidia hardware,” Musk said on Tesla’s quarterly earnings call. “We’ll actually take Nvidia hardware as fast as Nvidia will deliver it to us. Tremendous respect for [CEO] Jensen [Huang] and Nvidia. They’ve done an incredible job.”
Tesla also uses Nvidia chips to power its custom-built supercomputer, Musk said. The problem is that even though Nvidia has prioritized some Tesla orders, the chipmaker has too many customers to deliver all the hardware Tesla needs.
As a result, Musk says Tesla is building its own supercomputer, known as Dojo, that instead runs on custom silicon. Construction of the machine is planned to begin this month.
“If [Nvidia] could deliver us enough GPUs, we might not need Dojo, but they can’t,” Musk said.
Musk’s full-throated endorsement did little to move markets, however. Nvidia shares declined nearly 1% Wednesday and Tesla dropped about 0.7%, along with the broader tech sector.
Nvidia next reports earnings on August 23.
Contact Andrew Kessel at andrew.kessel@proactiveinvestors.com
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