Tesla shutters Dojo supercomputer project, shifts focus to Cortex and AI6 chips
Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer, once the cornerstone of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) AI training efforts, is officially dead. The company disbanded the Dojo team and ended the project in 2025, pivoting fully to a new AI training cluster called Cortex and next-gen AI6 chip designs.
The shift was confirmed during Tesla’s 2024 and 2025 earnings calls and through Elon Musk’s posts on X. Dojo, teased since 2019 and hyped as a game-changing AI training supercomputer with custom Tesla-designed D1 and D2 chips, never reached full production scale. 
Musk explained the shutdown with a focus on consolidation:
“It doesn’t make sense for Tesla to divide its resources and scale two quite different AI chip designs. The Tesla AI5, AI6 and subsequent chips will be excellent for inference and at least pretty good for training. All effort is focused on that.”
The AI6 chips are Tesla’s new all-in-one architecture aimed at powering self-driving, humanoid robots, and data center training. Musk called Dojo “an evolutionary dead end” after realizing all future paths converge on AI6:
“Once it became clear that all paths converged to AI6, I had to shut down Dojo and make some tough personnel choices, as Dojo 2 was now an evolutionary dead end. Dojo 3 arguably lives on in the form of a large number of AI6 [systems-on-a-chip] on a single board.”
Cortex, Tesla’s new AI cluster at the Austin gigafactory, is already online and running, consisting of roughly 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs. Tesla credits Cortex for powering FSD version 13, which uses 4.2x more data and higher-res video inputs to improve safety and comfort.
Dojo workers reportedly left Tesla to launch their own AI chip startup, DensityAI. Tesla has reported spending approximately $5 billion on AI-related infrastructure so far, with plans to slow capital expenditures in 2025 as it focuses on Cortex and AI6.
The Dojo saga marks a major pivot in Tesla’s AI ambitions. After years of promises, investment, and technical development, the supercomputer that was supposed to revolutionize Tesla’s FSD training is now shelved. The future rests on Nvidia hardware and Tesla’s new AI chip designs.
Tesla’s Q2 2025 earnings also highlighted:
- Dojo 2 expected to hit scale in 2026 at ~100k H100-equivalent GPUs
- $16.5 billion contract with Samsung for AI6 chips
- Musk warning of Nvidia GPU supply constraints, pushing heavier reliance on in-house AI6 hardware
Tesla’s AI journey is evolving fast. The Dojo era has ended, but the race for full autonomy and AI dominance continues with Cortex and AI6 at the forefront.
