After Six Years, Tesla Shuts Down ‘Dojo’ Project, Shifts AI Investment to New Directions

Staff Reporter | PNN:
Tesla has officially shut down its highly publicized artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer project, “Dojo.” In August 2025, Elon Musk announced that the long-promoted project will no longer move forward, calling it “an evolutionary dead end.”

Dojo was originally launched to advance Tesla’s autonomous vehicle technology and the Robotaxi initiative. The company aimed to utilize its own chips to power the supercomputer, reducing reliance on expensive and limited NVIDIA GPUs. However, after failing to achieve the anticipated results and signing a deal with Samsung for the development of the next-generation AI6 chip, Tesla declared the Dojo project obsolete.

The closure of the project led to the departure of nearly 20 engineers, including its lead, Peter Bannon, who have now started a new AI chip startup. Analysts note that the loss of skilled personnel was a major blow to Dojo.

However, this does not mark the end of Tesla’s AI journey. The company has already established another powerful supercomputer cluster named “Cortex” in Texas, which is being used to train new-generation autonomous software and humanoid robot Optimus.

Elon Musk stated, “Even though Dojo-2 is closed, its successor—powered by AI6 technology—will advance Tesla’s future AI-driven projects and make them even stronger.”

Industry experts say that although Dojo failed, Tesla has not stopped investing in AI; rather, the company is now pursuing a more integrated approach with external partners.