Tesla will spend $500 million to construct certainly one of its so-called “Dojo” supercomputers at its Buffalo, New York manufacturing unit, the state’s governor Kathy Hochul stated Friday throughout a information convention simply days after CEO Elon Musk referred to as the challenge a “lengthy shot.”

Tesla’s choice was “knowledgeable by New York’s dependable energy provide, sturdy expertise pipeline and availability of usable area for the challenge,” in line with Hochul’s workplace.

Dojo, which was first introduced at Tesla’s “AI Day” occasion in 2021, is a supercomputer meant to assist advance the corporate’s still-unrealized purpose of constructing a self-driving automobile. Tesla plans to make use of the supercomputer to course of reams of video knowledge that come off of its electrical automobiles as a way to practice the AI that now powers its most superior driver help software program, which it calls Full Self-Driving Beta. Musk stated final yr that Tesla plans to spend “effectively over $1 billion” on Dojo.

Bringing the Dojo challenge to Buffalo is the newest shift in Tesla’s priorities for the situation, which has became one thing of a boondoggle for New York state. As soon as dubbed “Gigafactory 2,” Tesla took over the manufacturing unit from SolarCity when it acquired the troubled photo voltaic panel firm in 2016. The state had already dedicated $750 million to the plant by that time. Tesla promised to make Photo voltaic Roof tiles there, however struggled to supply the product at scale. Its companion, Panasonic, pulled out of the plant in 2020, and Tesla pivoted to using individuals who labeled coaching knowledge for its less-advanced Autopilot software program.

Musk stated final April that he believed the Dojo supercomputer challenge was a “lengthy shot wager” that might “repay in a really, very massive manner… within the multi-hundred-billion-dollar stage.”

He reiterated the purpose this week on a name with analysts. “It’s not, like, a certain factor in any respect, It’s a high-risk, high-payoff program,” he stated. “We’re scaling it up, and we now have plans for Dojo 1.5, Dojo 2, Dojo 3, and whatnot. So, you realize, I feel it’s received potential, however the type of measurement sufficient excessive threat, excessive payoff.”

Whereas the $500 million funding acquired cheers throughout Hochul’s press convention, Musk downplayed the determine in a social media publish on X, noting the corporate would spend far more cash on Nvidia {hardware} in 2024.

“The governor is appropriate that it is a Dojo Supercomputer, however $500M, whereas clearly a big sum of cash, is just equal to a 10k H100 system from Nvidia,” Musk wrote within the publish on X. “Tesla will spend greater than that on Nvidia {hardware} this yr. The desk stakes for being aggressive in AI are at the least a number of billion {dollars} per yr at this level.”