Tesla's $300 Million AI Cluster Is Going Live Today

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Tesla is about to flip the switch on its new AI cluster, featuring 10,000 Nvidia H100 compute GPUs.

Data center
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Tesla is set to launch its highly-anticipated supercomputer on Monday, according to @SawyerMerritt. The machine will be used for various artificial intelligence (AI) applications, but the cluster is so powerful that it could also be used for demanding high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. In fact, the Nvidia H100-based supercomputer will be one of the most powerful machines in the world.

Tesla's new cluster will employ 10,000 Nvidia H100 compute GPUs, which will offer a peak performance of 340 FP64 PFLOPS for technical computing and 39.58 INT8 ExaFLOPS for AI applications. In fact, Tesla’s 340 FP64 PFLOPS is higher than 304 FP64 PFLOPS offered by Leonardo, the world’s fourth highest-performing supercomputer.

(Image credit: @SawyerMerritt/Twitter)

With its new supercomputer, Tesla is significantly enhancing its computing capabilities to train its full self-driving (FSD) technology faster than ever. This could not only make Tesla more competitive than other automakers but will make the company the owner of one of the world's fastest supercomputers.

"Due to real-world video training, we may have the largest training datasets in the world, hot tier cache capacity beyond 200PB — orders of magnitudes more than LLMs," explained Tim Zaman, AI Infra & AI Platform Engineering Manager at Tesla.

(Image credit: @SawyerMerritt/Twitter)

While the new H100-based cluster is set to dramatically improve Tesla's training speed, Nvidia is struggling to meet demand for these GPUs. As a result, Tesla is investing over $1 billion to develop its own supercomputer, Dojo, which is built on custom-designed, highly optimized system-on-chips. 

Dojo will not only accelerate FSD training but will also manage data processing for Tesla's entire vehicle fleet. Tesla is simultaneously bringing its Nvidia H100 GPU cluster online along with Dojo, a move that will give the company unparalleled computing power in the automotive industry.

Elon Musk recently revealed that Tesla plans to spend over $2 billion on AI training in 2023 and another $2 billion in 2024 specifically on computing for FSD training. This underscores Tesla's commitment to overcoming computational bottlenecks and should provide substantial advantages over its rivals. 

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hotaru251
    "a move that will give the company unparalleled computing power in the automotive industry."

    I personally do not want a high tech car. (especially given how they are going to cars as a service where you always pay em for soemthing)

    I want a reliable, user fixable vehicle to get me from A to B.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    hotaru251 said:
    "a move that will give the company unparalleled computing power in the automotive industry."

    I personally do not want a high tech car. (especially given how they are going to cars as a service where you always pay em for soemthing)

    I want a reliable, user fixable vehicle to get me from A to B.
    These days they are all high tech. Cars created for NA and EU in the last 10 years have a minimum of 15 ECUs running everything from the engine to the trunk latch.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    Not 15, but generally a single ECU for the drive train, a BCU for all doors/locks, an Airbag computer typically located in the middle of the car, and usually one or two more for navigation/entertainment systems and specialty stuff like OnStar. (OnStar is mandatory now by the way)

    But yeah, the trends are certainly going in a direction with high long term costs.

    Headlights now fully electronic on most new models. No user serviceable bulbs.

    Subscription based online services and cellular connections (going to have to start paying for that with my car in about two more years)

    Not going to be mechanical failure you have to worry about any longer. (Well except for heater cores and blend gates still, full dash removal, every time)
    Reply
  • toffty
    hotaru251 said:
    "a move that will give the company unparalleled computing power in the automotive industry."

    I personally do not want a high tech car. (especially given how they are going to cars as a service where you always pay em for soemthing)

    I want a reliable, user fixable vehicle to get me from A to B.
    Why though? With how much the average vehicle sits doing nothing all day, in every way paying as a service will save people money. No car payments, no insurance, no repairs, etc.
    As most will be EVs too and less in total number, it's a win for the environment too.
    Not to even mention that all will be driven autonomously, decreasing car accidents substantially.

    It is going to be a struggle to get there, though
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    toffty said:
    in every way paying as a service will save people money. No car payments, no insurance, no repairs, etc.
    you misunderstand how it works.

    its not renting a car.

    its you "buying" a car like normal, but they systematically disable parts unless you pay em monthly/yearly. (tesla started it and others are adopting it more and more)

    toffty said:
    Not to even mention that all will be driven autonomously, decreasing car accidents substantially.
    incorrect.
    You can't have this "dream" a reality anytime soon.

    you have big hurdles to fix 1st.

    1 being actual smart enoguh to drive by themselves.
    2 being eliminating every non self driving car. (human error cant be calculated)
    3 being cities arent designed for them & need redone.

    2 specifically will not happen anytime soon as people who like to drive their cars will not give up driving their cars.
    Reply
  • toffty
    hotaru251 said:
    you misunderstand how it works.
    No, you misunderstand. The future is being driven like a taxi/uber/lyft service. Individuals don't rent/own their cars. It's a pay per use.

    I know what you were mentioning, i already own a Tesla but I got it before things turned to subscription so I have those features for free.
    hotaru251 said:
    incorrect.
    You can't have this "dream" a reality anytime soon.

    you have big hurdles to fix 1st.

    1 being actual smart enoguh to drive by themselves.
    2 being eliminating every non self driving car. (human error cant be calculated)
    3 being cities arent designed for them & need redone.

    2 specifically will not happen anytime soon as people who like to drive their cars will not give up driving their cars.
    Why I said "It is going to be a struggle to get there, though"
    There will be a point where only the rich can drive cars or people go to a track to drive cars -insurance will be way too expensive and humans will be deemed too dangerous to drive themselves.

    I, for one, cannot wait to convert my garage into another useful room. It's not now and it's not in a decade, but it will come.
    Reply
  • RichardtST
    toffty said:
    Why though? With how much the average vehicle sits doing nothing all day, in every way paying as a service will save people money. No car payments, no insurance, no repairs, etc.
    As most will be EVs too and less in total number, it's a win for the environment too.
    Not to even mention that all will be driven autonomously, decreasing car accidents substantially.

    It is going to be a struggle to get there, though
    "You will own nothing and you will be happy" - Hmmm... I wonder where I've heard that before? No, see, that's not the way it works in crony capitalist USA. Once you are trapped into rentals and cannot afford the object on your own, they simply raise the rent beyond your wildest dreams. You have waaaay too much faith in technology and humanity. Come to the darkside for a while and see. We have cookies.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    Eximo said:
    Not 15, but generally a single ECU for the drive train, a BCU for all doors/locks, an Airbag computer typically located in the middle of the car, and usually one or two more for navigation/entertainment systems and specialty stuff like OnStar. (OnStar is mandatory now by the way)

    But yeah, the trends are certainly going in a direction with high long term costs.

    Headlights now fully electronic on most new models. No user serviceable bulbs.

    Subscription based online services and cellular connections (going to have to start paying for that with my car in about two more years)

    Not going to be mechanical failure you have to worry about any longer. (Well except for heater cores and blend gates still, full dash removal, every time)
    For an ICE vehicle this is the minimum list in NA/EU. Hybrids and EVs have a more

    1. PowerTrain, depending on the model there may be 2 (one for engine one for transmission)
    2. CAN gateway/Body control
    3. Passenger occupant classification (required for NA/EU
    4. Driver Airbag, in most cases these days passenger Airbag is also a separate ECU but for argument sake i'll put it here
    5. Anti theft/key verification
    6. MIC/Cluster
    7. Audio/Entertainment
    8. ABS/Stability control (depending on the vendor these are also sometime separate)
    9. Tire pressure monitor (required in NA/EU)
    10. HVAC controller (even if the are knobs)

    Now if you look at cars sold in North America or the EU you will find these on most of the vehicles sold in the last 10 years

    1. Side Airbag
    2. Door modules for locks/auto windows
    3. Automatic Seat control

    So I guess that is only 13, not 15. However, these are low end cars these days. Once you add adaptive cruise control, auto wipers, heated seats, backup camera/sensors, active steering, passive entry, on star, park assist, collision detection, transfer case, etc. they add up fast. It's not uncommon for a high end car to have 30+ ECUs.

    You might think all these could be combined, but most of these things are developed by vendors, not the automotive companies themselves. The vendors supply both the parts and the control units. That's why many of these are separate even if they seem like they could be combined (it's done for cost savings some time as well to reduce wiring).
    Reply
  • Eximo
    A lot of those functions are combined though into single units. They are requirements, not specific hardware lists.

    I will grant you I was more concentrated on the primary systems, not so much the very generic term electronic control module.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    Eximo said:
    A lot of those functions are combined though into single units. They are requirements, not specific hardware lists.

    I will grant you I was more concentrated on the primary systems, not so much the very generic term electronic control module.
    That's how it is these days though. Most of these systems come from outside vendors and they code up the ECUs that control the systems (audio, hvac, airbag(s), ABS, etc.), the auto makers just integrate them. Granted the vendors follow the auto makers spec for the modules, but the automakers learned long ago it was easier for a vendor to deliver a single ECU connected to the network than it was to try to merge the vendors code in with the code from other vendors and the automakers into a single ECU. They tried doing nutting things like merging code into single control units in the 90s and it worked out poorly for everyone.
    Reply