--- title: "Tesla Built One of the World’s Most Powerful Supercomputers to Train Its Self-Driving System" description: "Tesla just showed off its massive new supercomputer — and according to their numbers, it may just be the fifth most powerful one in the world, according to Electrek." date: "2021-06-22" modified: "2021-06-22" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-supercomputer-self-driving" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Computers" - "Computing" - "Robots and Machines" - "Self-Driving Vehicles" - "Tesla" tags: - "elon musk" - "Self-driving cars" - "supercomputers" - "tesla" - "the digest" --- # Tesla Built One of the World’s Most Powerful Supercomputers to Train Its Self-Driving System ![Tesla just showed off its massive new supercomputer — and according to their numbers, it may just be the fifth most powerful one in the world, according to Electrek.]() *\Image: Tesla\* ## Tesla Supercomputer Tesla just showed off its massive new supercomputer — and according to the figures it's released, [*Electrek* reports](), it may be the fifth most powerful unit in the world. The car company says it's using its newly gained computing power to train its vehicles' Autopilot feature, as well as still-unreleased self-driving artificial intelligence systems. It's an incremental step towards the realization of Tesla's planned supercomputer, dubbed "Dojo," a next generation system that could allow Teslas to gain unprecedented levels of autonomy on the road. ## Computer Vision The mechanics of the system are also a testament to Tesla's commitment to rely on vision alone to teach its cars how to drive themselves — a notable departure from competing systems that employ radar as well. "For us, computer vision is the bread and butter of what we do and what enables Autopilot," Karpahty said during an [announcement]() at the 2021 Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition on Monday, as quoted by *Electrek*. "And for that to work really well, we need to master the data from the fleet, and train massive neural nets and experiment a lot." "If you take the total number of FLOPS it would indeed place somewhere around the fifth spot," Tesla senior director of AI Andrej Karpathy [told *Engadget*](). ## Making Rank Notably, the team has yet to run tests to see where it officially lands on the TOP500 supercomputing ranking. The data being fed to the computer are live video feeds from the eight cameras mounted on Tesla vehicles. The supercomputer can then process the data, which will ideally allow the vehicles to better understand their physical surroundings. The news comes after Musk reiterated his desire to go vision-only and no longer rely on radar data to allow Tesla vehicles to partially drive themselves. "When radar and vision disagree, which one do you believe?" [Musk tweeted]() back in April. "Vision has much more precision, so better to double down on vision than do sensor fusion." **READ MORE:** [Tesla unveils its new supercomputer (5th most powerful in the world) to train self-driving AI]() \[*Electrek*\] **More on Tesla:** *[Germany Wants Tesla to Share Its Supercharger Network With Other Carmakers]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()