The American company Tesla, owned by tycoon Elon Musk, is looking for engineers in Taiwan for its new Terafab artificial intelligence (AI) chip complex, a project that could challenge TSMC’s leadership in the production of advanced semiconductors.
The North American firm has published nine job offers on its website, which require at least five years of experience in the manufacturing of advanced chips, a segment in which Taiwan leads globally.
The announcements describe Terafab as a vertically integrated semiconductor facility on an “unprecedented scale,” where logic and memory production, as well as packaging, testing, and lithography mask manufacturing processes will coexist under one roof.
Most of these positions require experience in chip manufacturing at advanced nodes below 7 nanometers, precisely the area in which Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract semiconductor manufacturer, excels.
Musk announced last month his Terafab project, a joint initiative between Tesla, xAI and SpaceX – later joined by Intel – that aims to produce more than one terawatt per year of computing capacity for artificial intelligence, robotics and space exploration.
According to sources cited by BloombergMusk has made offers to engineers from companies such as TSMC, Samsung and Applied Materials for this project, and his collaborators have already contacted industry suppliers to request quotes and delivery times for various manufacturing equipment.
The tycoon’s emergence into this field, which many experts consider risky, could open a new competitive front for TSMC, a company that has 70.4% of the global share of the semiconductor manufacturing market, above Samsung (7.1%) and SMIC (5.2%), according to estimates by the consulting firm TrendForce.
Asked about Musk’s plans in a conference call with analysts, TSMC president and CEO CC Wei said Thursday that there are no “shortcuts” in the chip foundry business, since it takes between two and three years to build a new factory.
