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

Intel announced Tuesday that it is partnering with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla on the recently launched Terafab project to produce semiconductors. In a post published on

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Intel says it hosted Musk on its campus last weekend. The company also shared a photo of Musk shaking hands with Tan.

What is Terafab?

Musk launched the Terafab project last month and described it as “the most epic chip creation effort in history.” The project is a joint venture between Tesla and SpaceX, where Musk serves as CEO.

The billionaire also claimed that Terafab is the only facility in the world that brings the entire chipmaking lifecycle, including memory, packaging, testing and production of lithography masks, under one roof.

At the launch, Musk said that the Terafab project would solve a flaw in artificial intelligence computing.

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

Musk also revealed that his advanced manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, will produce two different chips: one to power cars and humanoid robots and will be “optimized for edge inference,” while the other will be designed for space and made to deal with “hostile environments” and run hotter than terrestrial chips.

Musk merged SpaceX with xAI earlier this year, and the space transportation company also confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the US.

“I know factories are really hard, I don’t think they’re easy, but we do a lot of hard things,” Musk said last month.