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Yes, per the talk Dojo is at the stage of having made first chips. But your comment is neither here not there. What do you think is a timeline for designing a

by kjksf 4y ago

Yes, per the talk Dojo is at the stage of having made first chips. But your comment is neither here not there. What do you think is a timeline for designing a chip like Dojo from scratch? Tesla has been working on this for almost 7 years (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ganesh-venkataramanan-99272a3/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ganesh-venkataramanan-99272a3/). They might not work fast enough for your satisfaction but can you point any other car company designing chips like Dojo? Hell, can you point to any company at all that can come out of the gate with a chip design competitive with the best design of NVIDIA, a company that makes nothing but chips? After 7 years of work they are clearly confident that this will work or else they would scarp the project instead of giving talks at conferences.

panick21_ 4y ago
Also, even if the first version didn't make financial sense, building the team and the infrastructure required to make this work will likely translate into a next generation chip. Part of Tesla vertical integration mantra is that you are building internal capacity.
FireBeyond 4y ago
> After 7 years of work they are clearly confident that this will work or else they would scarp the project instead of giving talks at conferences. They are clearly confident that FSD will work, to the point of promising it "this year"... coincidentally, they've been promising "this year" for the last 7 years. And FSD still fails in spectacular/hilarious/horrifying ways, and isn't _remotely_ close.
aunty_helen 4y ago
>After 7 years of work they are clearly confident that this will work or else they would scarp the project instead of giving talks at conferences. Being real for a second, Tesla don’t have an amazing track record of delivery on their ai software side of things.
p1esk 4y ago
Hell, can you point to any company at all that can come out of the gate with a chip design competitive with the best design of NVIDIA, a company that makes nothing but chips? Google.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  Sounds like Tesla is in good company then.
  - p1esk 4y ago
    Yes. In addition to Nvidia and Google it will also have to compete with Intel, Cerebras, SambaNova, Graphcore, and maybe even AMD.
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      The point was that very few companies can pull off a clean sheet chip design from nothing. Google has done it, but Google is an elite company. So saying Tesla isn't the only company that has done it because Google has done it only shows that Tesla is doing very well. But it seems clear to me that the point isn't to compete with these other companies, but to vertically integrate a critical component of their systems. They can discard a lot of legacy concerns and focus on raw power. The thing is that if Tesla just uses Nvidia, like everyone else, then Tesla's stuff is only differentiated by software. Everyone uses Nvidia and it becomes hard to set themselves apart. But if Nvidia is chasing a broad customer base and has all this extra stuff to think about, then Tesla could potentially be more nimble, and produce a holistic system design that solves exactly the problems they have with no chuff. This could result in a more advanced hardware platform so their robotics products differentiate themselves with both hardware and software. I am also happy because I am a robotics engineer, and in my opinion we need hardware that is 1000x more powerful than today to do what we really need. Nvidia wants to move at a certain pace, but if Tesla is trying to beat them on raw power, then Nvidia will play catch up and accelerate development of more powerful systems. This is great for everyone.
      - 4y ago
croes 4y ago
>After 7 years of work they are clearly confident that this will work or else they would scarp the project instead of giving talks at conferences. Doesn't the same apply to FSD? How many years is it now ready the next year?
- rbanffy 4y ago
  Remember AI? AGI seems just around the corner since the 60’s. There we learned that the things that seemed complicated (such as beating a champion at chess) were simple and the simple things are still almost mind blowingly hard.

by kjksf 4y ago

panick21_ 4y ago

Also, even if the first version didn't make financial sense, building the team and the infrastructure required to make this work will likely translate into a next generation chip. Part of Tesla vertical integration mantra is that you are building internal capacity.

FireBeyond 4y ago

> After 7 years of work they are clearly confident that this will work or else they would scarp the project instead of giving talks at conferences. They are clearly confident that FSD will work, to the point of promising it "this year"... coincidentally, they've been promising "this year" for the last 7 years. And FSD still fails in spectacular/hilarious/horrifying ways, and isn't _remotely_ close.

aunty_helen 4y ago

>After 7 years of work they are clearly confident that this will work or else they would scarp the project instead of giving talks at conferences. Being real for a second, Tesla don’t have an amazing track record of delivery on their ai software side of things.

p1esk 4y ago

Hell, can you point to any company at all that can come out of the gate with a chip design competitive with the best design of NVIDIA, a company that makes nothing but chips? Google.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
Sounds like Tesla is in good company then.
- p1esk 4y ago
  Yes. In addition to Nvidia and Google it will also have to compete with Intel, Cerebras, SambaNova, Graphcore, and maybe even AMD.
  - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
    The point was that very few companies can pull off a clean sheet chip design from nothing. Google has done it, but Google is an elite company. So saying Tesla isn't the only company that has done it because Google has done it only shows that Tesla is doing very well. But it seems clear to me that the point isn't to compete with these other companies, but to vertically integrate a critical component of their systems. They can discard a lot of legacy concerns and focus on raw power. The thing is that if Tesla just uses Nvidia, like everyone else, then Tesla's stuff is only differentiated by software. Everyone uses Nvidia and it becomes hard to set themselves apart. But if Nvidia is chasing a broad customer base and has all this extra stuff to think about, then Tesla could potentially be more nimble, and produce a holistic system design that solves exactly the problems they have with no chuff. This could result in a more advanced hardware platform so their robotics products differentiate themselves with both hardware and software. I am also happy because I am a robotics engineer, and in my opinion we need hardware that is 1000x more powerful than today to do what we really need. Nvidia wants to move at a certain pace, but if Tesla is trying to beat them on raw power, then Nvidia will play catch up and accelerate development of more powerful systems. This is great for everyone.
    - 4y ago

croes 4y ago

>After 7 years of work they are clearly confident that this will work or else they would scarp the project instead of giving talks at conferences. Doesn't the same apply to FSD? How many years is it now ready the next year?

rbanffy 4y ago
Remember AI? AGI seems just around the corner since the 60’s. There we learned that the things that seemed complicated (such as beating a champion at chess) were simple and the simple things are still almost mind blowingly hard.