Tesla Believes Its Dojo AI System Will Help It Win the Self-Driving Car Race

author: Vineeth Joel Patel   

Last year during Tesla's AI Day, the automaker unveiled its Dojo supercomputer. At the time, Tesla claimed the supercomputer was the world's most powerful training machine and would help the automaker teach its vehicles how to drive without any inputs from a human driver. While Tesla officially announced the system last year, the automaker provided more information on its Dojo supercomputer this year at the Hot Chips conference. 

High-Tech AI System Coming Soon

Dojo's job is to take all of the video Tesla gathers from its fleet of Tesla cars on the road today and process it to learn how cars drive in the real world. The training process is what represents the base for Tesla's Full Self Driving System. Going forward, Tesla believes that Full Self Driving will be the way forward if it wants to come out with vehicles that can drive on their own in the future. 

Currently, Tesla's Full Self Driving System is in its beta stage, which means that it's still early days. That means a human driver has to constantly remain in control over the vehicle at all times. Tesla has been in hot water, because the automaker has struggled to deliver all of the features it promised with Full Self Driving. One of the problems Tesla is having with keeping its promise with a fully autonomous vehicle is the challenge it's having to train an AI system to understand just how complex driving a car is. There is where Dojo comes in to save the day. 

To make its advanced Dojo AI system, Tesla starts things off by designing its D1 chips for its own needs. Once made, the D1 chips are linked in groups of 25 to form a single square "training tile." These training tiles are linked edge to edge to form a grid. Data moves from tile to tile. In addition to building the D1 chips, Tesla also customizes everything for Dojo, including the instruction set that commands the D1 chips, the AI software framework that runs everything, and the network technology. 

The Final Key To Self-Driving Cars?

Currently, Tesla is using Nvidia processors to train its current AI system to speed things up. Tesla is reportedly transitioning from Nvidia processors to its new D1 chips, but there's no information on how quickly the transition is going. The only concrete thing we know is that Tesla will be showcasing how fast Dojo is on its AI Day event on September 30, 2022. 

With Tesla going all-in on Dojo, it showcases how the automaker is part technology company. Most traditional automakers rely on outside parties for nearly every component in a car, especially when it comes to tech features, but Tesla is turning to building the tech itself, which is an approach that's called vertical integration. 

Tesla's new Dojo AI system should help it keep the numerous promises it has made for its Full Self Driving System. Consumers have purchased the system hoping that it comes with all of the features the automaker has promised, but has fallen short on those for years. 

Vineeth Joel Patel

Joel Patel has been covering all aspects of the automotive industry for four years as an editor and freelance writer for various websites. When it comes to cars, he enjoys covering the merger between technology and cars. In his spare time, Joel likes to watch baseball, work on his car, and try new foods