SpaceX has a $55 billion plan to build AI chips in Texas

SpaceX 计划斥资 550 亿美元在德克萨斯州建造 AI 芯片工厂

Elon Musk’s plans to get into the AI chip manufacturing business are going to be costly. As the New York Times and CNBC report, SpaceX is planning to invest at least $55 billion into its “Terafab” chip plant in Austin, Texas. That’s according to the details of a public hearing notice filed in Grimes County, Texas, for a meeting to request tax breaks for the project.

埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）进军人工智能芯片制造领域的计划将耗资巨大。据《纽约时报》和 CNBC 报道，SpaceX 计划为其位于德克萨斯州奥斯汀的“Terafab”芯片工厂投资至少 550 亿美元。这一消息来自德克萨斯州格莱姆斯县（Grimes County）提交的一份公开听证会通知，该会议旨在为该项目申请税收减免。

The company says that if additional phases are constructed, its investment could someday balloon to $119 billion total. When Musk initially announced the project in March, he shared ambitious plans for it to produce enough chips to support up to 200 gigawatts per year of computing power on Earth, and up to one terawatt in space. SpaceX is also trying to expand its data center footprint on Earth, and currently operates a “Colossus” data center in Memphis, Tennessee, that recently signed an agreement to power Anthropic’s AI models.

该公司表示，如果后续阶段得以建设，其总投资额未来可能会激增至 1190 亿美元。马斯克在 3 月份首次宣布该项目时，分享了雄心勃勃的计划：该工厂生产的芯片将足以支持地球上每年高达 200 吉瓦（GW）的计算能力，以及太空中高达 1 太瓦（TW）的计算能力。SpaceX 也在努力扩大其在地球上的数据中心规模，目前在田纳西州孟菲斯市运营着一个名为“Colossus”的数据中心，该中心最近签署了一项协议，为 Anthropic 的人工智能模型提供算力支持。

The Texas plant will be run by SpaceX and Tesla and make chips for both companies, which Musk has said will be used for AI, robotics, and space-based data centers. Last month, Intel announced that it would help design and build Terafab, saying, “Our ability to design, fabricate, and package ultra-high-performance chips at scale will help accelerate Terafab’s aim to produce 1 TW/year of compute to power future advances in AI and robotics.”

这座德克萨斯州的工厂将由 SpaceX 和特斯拉共同运营，并为两家公司制造芯片。马斯克曾表示，这些芯片将用于人工智能、机器人技术和太空数据中心。上个月，英特尔宣布将协助设计和建造 Terafab，并表示：“我们大规模设计、制造和封装超高性能芯片的能力，将有助于加速 Terafab 实现每年生产 1 太瓦算力的目标，从而为人工智能和机器人技术的未来进步提供动力。”