Tesla is expanding its Texas Gigafactory to house a cutting-edge AI supercomputer cluster. The expansion project, which is nearing completion, will incorporate 50,000 Nvidia GPUs alongside Tesla’s proprietary AI hardware and is expected to advance Tesla’s Full Self Driving.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk estimates the Gigafactory supercomputer to initially draw 130 megawatts upon deployment, and potentially scale up to 500 megawatts.
Remarkably, this is not Musk’s only foray into supercomputing. Parallel to this project is another multi-billion dollar supercomputer cluster for xAI, the billionaire’s artificial intelligence startup.
This new supercomputer— pipped to become one of the world’s largest GPU-powered AI clusters with an initial order of 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs— will power the next version of GrokAI, the AI chatbot available to premium subscribers of X (formerly Twitter).
Dell and Supermicro (SMC) will provide the servers for the xAI supercomputer, as confirmed by Dell chairman and CEO Michael Dell on Twitter. Additionally, plans are in place to upgrade the system to 300,000 Nvidia B200 GPUs by next summer.
Cool, in more than one dimension
Both supercomputer projects will be cooled by solutions provided by San Jose-based Super Micro Computer Inc. (Supermicro). Charles Liang, founder and CEO of the company, took to X, praising Musk’s decision to incorporate their liquid cooling technology in both supercomputer clusters.
Liquid cooling offers significant advantages over conventional cooling methods data centers leverage. Supermicro claims a reduction of electricity costs of up to 89% with their direct cooling solution.
Liang aims to increase the adoption of direct liquid cooling in data centers from less than 1% to over 30% within a year, Tom’s Hardware reported. Musk’s clusters implementing this technology could serve as a catalyst for wider industry adoption.
“We are nothing without our fans,” Musk noted, sharing images of the massive under-construction fans that will chill the liquid cooling system.
Racing toward the future of AI
Both the Tesla and xAI supercomputer projects are underway amid reports suggesting the latter cluster to have taken priority. Musk has reportedly redirected thousands of Nvidia GPUs originally destined for Tesla to xAI instead. While this decision has caused delays in the Tesla supercomputer’s construction, the extent of the setbacks has not been made clear yet.
Despite these challenges, both projects are expected to come online within the next few months. Their completion will potentially reshape autonomous driving technology and natural language processing.
Although Tesla’s supercomputer is clearly aimed at advancing Full Self Driving capabilities, the broader implications of xAI’s project remain to be seen and could answer questions about the future direction of Musk’s various ventures.
Even with Musk at the helm, one thing is certain: the race toward the next generation of AI is heating up, and even the most innovative cooling solutions will break a sweat in keeping temperatures down.
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