What is Terafab? Intel joins Elon Musk's mission to build chips for space and robots

Intel announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with Elon Musk's SpaceX and Tesla on the recently launched Terafab project to build semiconductors. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Intel confirmed that the company will help the Terafab project ‘refactor’ silicon fab technology, a process that is used in semiconductor manufacturing to eliminate physical inefficiencies and streamline production.

“Intel is proud to join the Terafab project with @SpaceX, @xAI, and @Tesla to help refactor silicon fab technology. 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,” Intel wrote in a post on X.

The company's CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, in a separate post on X, wrote, “Elon has a proven track record of reimagining entire industries. This is exactly what is needed in semiconductor manufacturing today. Terafab represents a step change in how silicon logic, memory, and packaging will get built in the future. Intel is proud to be a partner and work closely with Elon on this highly strategic project 🚀🚀”.

Intel says that it hosted Musk at its campus over the past weekend. The company also shared an image of Musk shaking hands with Tan.

What is Terafab?

Musk had launched the Terafab project last month, calling it the “most epic chip-building exercise in history”. The project is a joint venture between Tesla and SpaceX, both companies where Musk serves as the CEO.

The billionaire also claimed that Terafab is the only facility in the world to have the entire chip-making lifecycle under one roof, including memory, packaging, testing, and manufacturing of lithography masks.

Musk said during the launch that the Terafab project would solve a looming shortage in AI compute.

“We either build the Terafab or we don’t have the chips… and we need the chips, so we’re going to build Terafab,” he said.

Musk had also announced that the advanced manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, would build two distinct chips: one for powering cars and humanoid robots and will be ‘optimised for edge inference’, while the other would be designed for space and will be made to handle ‘hostile environments’ and run hotter than terrestrial chips.

Musk had merged SpaceX with xAI earlier this year, and the space transportation company has also confidentially filed for an IPO in the US.

"I know fabs are really hard, I don't think they're easy, but we do a lot of hard things," Musk said last month.