Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, confirmed that the American electric vehicle brand has signed a $16.5 billion agreement to acquire chips from Samsung Electronics.
Musk stated that Samsung’s new chip factory in Taylor, Texas, in the U.S., will produce Tesla’s next-generation AI6 chip, a project that has faced long delays due to Samsung’s difficulties in retaining and attracting major clients.
Samsung’s giant new Texas fab will be dedicated to making Tesla’s next-generation AI6 chip. The strategic importance of this is hard to overstate.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 28, 2025
Samsung currently makes AI4.
TSMC will make AI5, which just finished design, initially in Taiwan and then Arizona.
“Samsung has agreed to allow Tesla to help maximize production efficiency. This is a critical point, as I will personally walk the front line to accelerate the pace of progress. And the factory is conveniently located not far from my home”, Musk said in a post on X this Monday.
Currently, Samsung produces Tesla’s A14 chips, which power the Full Self-Driving autonomous driving system of the American brand’s electric vehicles, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is expected to produce the AI5, initially in Taiwan and then in Arizona, by the end of 2026, Musk said, suggesting that Samsung’s A16 will arrive later.
According to “Reuters”, the agreement with Tesla now announced comes at a time when Samsung is facing increasing pressure in the race to produce artificial intelligence chips, where it is lagging behind rivals such as TSMC and SK Hynix.
