Elon Musk has in contrast the AI arms race to a excessive stakes sport of poker, with corporations needing to spend billions on AI {hardware} simply to remain aggressive.
The billionaire stated that Tesla would spend greater than $500 million on Nvidia AI chips alone in 2024 — however he warned that it might want “a number of billion {dollars}” price of {hardware} simply to maintain up with its largest rivals.
“$500M, whereas clearly a big sum of cash, is barely equal to a 10k H100 system from Nvidia,” stated Musk in a submit on X.
“Tesla will spend greater than that on Nvidia {hardware} this yr. The desk stakes for being aggressive in AI are at the very least a number of billion {dollars} per yr at this level,” he added.
The world’s largest tech corporations are all scrambling to get their palms on as many Nvidia H100 GPUs as potential proper now.
The microchips, which are estimated to price between $25,000 to $30,000 apiece — or $40,000 on eBay — are important for constructing and coaching the big language fashions that energy chatbots like ChatGPT.
Earlier this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg instructed The Verge that Meta was constructing an enormous stockpile of GPUs, with the corporate aiming to amass a complete of 600,000 chips by the tip of the yr.
Musk is aiming to construct his personal stockpile, saying in a submit on X that Tesla will purchase chips from each Nvidia and its rival AMD this yr.
The billionaire beforehand stated on X that Tesla is an AI and robotics firm quite than a carmaker. Earlier this yr, he stated that the electrical car big is planning to spend greater than $1 billion to construct an enormous “Dojo” supercomputer.
However Musk has additionally solid doubt over Tesla’s AI push in current weeks. In a submit on X, he stated he was “uncomfortable” increase Tesla’s AI capability with out having extra management of the corporate.
The SpaceX founder additionally owns xAI, a devoted AI firm that he began final yr as a rival to ChatGPT-developer OpenAI.
xAI, which launched its personal foul-mouthed chatbot Grok final November, has reportedly been elevating funding in a bid to be valued at $20 billion — although Musk has denied that is the case.
Tesla didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from Enterprise Insider, made outdoors regular working hours.
