Tesla disbands Dojo supercomputer team in blow to AI semiconductor effort

Tesla is disbanding its Dojo supercomputer team and its leader will depart the company, according to people familiar with the matter, upending the automaker’s effort to develop in-house semiconductors for autonomous vehicle technology.

Peter Bannon, who was heading up Dojo, is leaving and CEO Elon Musk has ordered the effort to be shut down, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. The team has lost about 20 workers recently to newly formed DensityAI, and remaining Dojo workers are being reassigned to other data centre and compute projects within Tesla, the people said.

Tesla plans to increase its reliance on external technology partners, including Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices for computing resources, and Samsung Electronics for chip manufacturing, the people said.

The decision marks a major shift for a programme years in the making, with Dojo once positioned as central to Tesla’s multibillion-dollar plan to gain computing muscle in the artificial intelligence race.

Musk later posted on X that it did not make sense to divvy resources between two different AI chip designs, confirming the development to a user who shared Bloomberg News’ report.