Tesla Signs $16.5 Billion Deal With Samsung for New AI Chips

Key Takeaways

• Tesla has agreed to a $16.5 billion deal to buy next-generation semiconductors from Korean electronics maker Samsung.
• Samsung said it had secured an undisclosed new customer in a regulatory filing, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk later confirmed that the contract was with his company.
• The deal will run through the end of 2033, as Samsung will make Tesla's next-generation AI6 chip.

Tesla (TSLA) is set to get its next generation of semiconductor chips from South Korean electronics giant Samsung in a new deal worth more than $16 billion over the next eight years.

In a filing made public Sunday, Samsung said it had reached a new supply contract with an undisclosed "large global company," for roughly 22.76 trillion Korean won ($16.5 billion), with a start date of last Thursday and an end date at the end of 2033. Bloomberg reported that the "large global company" was Tesla, which the electric vehicle maker's CEO Elon Musk later confirmed in several social media posts.

"Samsung’s giant new Texas fab will be dedicated to making Tesla’s next-generation AI6 chip," Musk said in a Sunday night post. "The strategic importance of this is hard to overstate."

Musk said Samsung currently makes Tesla's AI4 chip, and said that chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) will make the AI5 chip, the design of which was recently finalized. The CEO said Samsung has agreed to let Tesla "assist in maximizing manufacturing efficiency," and in a later post called the $16.5 billion valuation of the contract "just the bare minimum," saying the "actual output is likely to be several times higher."

The AI6 chip will be used across Tesla's product line, in its vehicles to run the company's self-driving software, in its Optimus humanoid robots, and in data centers to power both of those products, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Tesla shares rose 1.5% in premarket trading Monday, as stocks broadly rose on encouraging U.S.-European Union trade news. Samsung's shares on its home Korean Stock Exchange ended the Monday trading session up 6.8%, closing at their highest point since September.

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