Tesla’s Dojo Supercomputer Head Exits in Blow to Efforts
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Dojo supercomputer project lead has left the company, according to people familiar with the matter, a setback to the automaker’s self-driving technology efforts.
Venkataramanan, who has led the Dojo project for the past five years, departed the EV maker last month, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. , a former Apple Inc. executive and director at Tesla for the past seven years, is now leading the project.
Tesla CEO and representatives for the company didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Dojo system is a Tesla-designed supercomputer made to train the machine-learning models behind the EV maker’s self-driving systems. The computer takes in data captured by vehicles and processes it rapidly to improve the company’s algorithms. Analysts have said Dojo could be a key competitive advantage, and earlier this year estimated it .
Musk has said the carmaker on Project Dojo by the end of 2024. The Tesla leader first shared plans for the supercomputer in 2019 before formally announcing it in 2021.
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Dojo is powered by a custom D1 chip designed by Venkataramanan, Bannon and a slew of other big names from the silicon industry. Venkataramanan previously worked at , while Tesla has several other veterans from the chip designer on staff. The recently departed executive set up Tesla’s AI hardware and silicon teams in 2016.
In recent weeks, Tesla also installed hardware for Dojo at a centralized location in Palo Alto, Calif., two of the people said. Dojo has relied on multiple data centers in different locations.
As of Dec. 6, Venkataramanan was no longer appearing in Tesla’s internal directories, one of the people said. At least one other member of the group has also left. The reason behind the departures couldn’t immediately be learned, but they pose a blow to the expensive and technologically advanced project.
Tesla previously relied on supercomputers from to power its AI-based systems, while Dojo would compete with offerings from and . In July, Tesla said it started production of the Dojo supercomputer system. It’s being manufactured by , the same builder of chips that Apple uses.
Last year, another key artificial intelligence player from Tesla departed: , who led AI efforts at the carmaker. Karpathy has since joined .
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