Terafab 21 March 2026

[MKWVentures]

Your theories might be correct, but they don't make sense in the context of what Musk has been talking about. He's been calling it a "terafab" because he thinks his volumes will be very high. He must be thinking hundreds of millions of chips to be in high volume territory. In fact, his rhetoric reminds me of Sam Altman's from a couple of years ago. If you're very high volume, as a terafab would be if it earned the name, cost is a big factor, because even a small cost adder on hundreds of millions of chips multiplies out quickly.

Co-location makes great sense if you're a control freak, which we all know Musk is, but now he has to ramp on multiple disparate production technologies simultaneously, so it makes no practical sense.

Basically, you're saying Musk is akin to an old-fashioned carnival snake-oil barker, just to get attention. I'm having trouble believing that.

You may be right... Lets see what he actually does vs his hype. How big a factory does he plan? What technologies does he actually plan to ramp.

And yes he is a carnival barker imho. No one is going to mars and the terafab, if it is built, will be smaller than tsmc fabs. just ask him for specifics and the actual plan will come out

 

[user nl]

For now, the project remains aspirational. As Moorhead put it, “I’ll start believing when I see confirmed… equipment orders, a named process technology partner, and a head of semiconductor manufacturing.”



https://www.datacenterknowledge.com...cture-shift-build-the-chips-control-the-stack

Musk’s ‘Terafab’ Proposal Sparks Debate on the Future of AI Infrastructure​

The ambitious Terafab effort targets AI’s next constraints – chip supply, power limits, and scaling – by bringing silicon production in-house.

Shane Snider,Senior News Writer,Data Center Knowledge
March 23, 2026

 

[Tiana Rahaga]

Running 2nm fab (and beyond) is not similar to making Tesla autonomous vehicle (not yet by the way) or Space X falcon or Starlink.

For now there are TSMC and ASML hegemony. For TSMC it is a kind of insurance against China invading

Even China is struggling with the 2nm challenge, despite it being a vital priority for them. Better to invade Taiwan and own everything and put thread on the others.

Intel is faltering, despite Lip Bu-Tan communication and Jason Huang photo

Samsung seems to be succeeding but suffers from a critically low yield. Elon still communicate the possible engagement with Samsung

Beyond lithography, talking about leading HBM, Chiplet and interconnec, 3D packaging...

Elon has money, sure, is the solution is to buy ASML, Samsung or TSMC and Memory manufacturer?

Time will tell how it will turn out. A real genius or an above-ground.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

rafab’ Proposal Sparks Debate on the Future of AI Infrastructure
The ambitious Terafab effort targets AI’s next constraints – chip supply, power limits, and scaling – by bringing silicon production in-house.

Shane Snider,Senior News Writer,Data Center Knowledge
March 23, 2026

It still looks like a head fake to get a better wafer agreement, better than his AI competitors.

He can pre pay TSMC to build fabs, like Apple did, and get a special process that others cannot use which would have a 99.99% success rate.