Elon Musk prioritizing humanoid robot advances, says TSMC CEO — TSMC will supply the chips if the price is right
December 18, 2024
Elon Musk has fingers in many high-tech pies, but the world’s richest man is now prioritizing advances in humanoid robotics, states TSMC’s CC Wei. The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of TSMC shared this information nugget with delegates at the Taiwan National Science and Technology Conference on Monday, reports Electronics Weekly. Moreover, he told his audience that TSMC would supply all the chips Musk wanted if the price was right.
In August, we last discussed Musk’s Optimus robots when the billionaire tech mogul showed off the newly renamed Cortex AI supercluster. At the time, this impressive supercomputer used 50,000 Nvidia H100s. Even more impressively, it had grown to leverage over 100,000 H100s by the beginning of this month, with plans supposedly to go for the million…
We know this AI supercomputer power will be directed at xAI’s signature products like Grok – hoping to outgun rival OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini. Investors have also been informed that Cortex will be used to train the long-awaited Full Self Driving (FSD) autopilot system for Tesla and today’s headlining AI-powered future tech product – Optimus humanoid robots. According to the cited report, Optimus is now Musk’s pet project.
CC Wei told conference delegates that “multifunctional robots are the most critical area and that he is dedicating great efforts to it, rather than cars.” Tesla owners might like to know that. The TSMC boss also let it be known that Musk was concerned about securing adequate supplies of processors to realize his AI-powered humanoid robot dreams.
TSMC currently makes Tesla Dojo chips, and as is typical of the AI industry, the tech titans behind this segment can’t get enough chips. Wei revealed that he tried to calm Musk’s chip-starvation worries by explaining, “If you are willing to pay us, then please don’t worry too much. I will make sure you get the chips.”
So, humanoid robots look set to enjoy massive financial and technological investments, but they aren’t the only sector TSMC’s CC Wei sees necessary for the company’s future fortunes. Wei also highlighted opportunities in drones and powering AI applications to optimize the provision of utilities like water, gas, and electricity.
