WTF?! Elon Musk has large generative-AI ambitions, and he is been pouring cash into a brand new knowledge heart being constructed at Tesla’s Austin Gigafactory. A brand new video has popped up on YouTube, giving us a sweeping view of the progress. It additionally reveals one thing that is received PC fanatics buzzing – three gigantic cooling followers being put in that look straight out of a gamer’s wildest goals.

These completely colossal followers, destined for the cooling constructing of Tesla’s Austin Dojo knowledge heart, have many drawing parallels with graphics playing cards. “Damnit Jensen, you’ve got achieved it once more,” uttered one consumer on X with a photograph exhibiting a make-do RTX 5090 photoshopped onto the cooling followers.

Damnit Jenson, you’ve got achieved it once more! $TSLA $NVDA pic.twitter.com/tW3fzYm5b4

– Brandon Smith (@BLSmith2112) June 19, 2024

However as amusing because the memes are, these monster followers are critical enterprise for Tesla. The corporate’s AI ambitions will probably require stupendous quantities of cooling to maintain racks of power-hungry GPUs from melting right into a puddle of silicon. AI mannequin coaching is an extremely compute-intensive workload that leans method more durable on graphics processors than CPUs.

For example, GPUs like Nvidia’s beastly H100 want liquid cooling to operate absolutely. So it is no shock that the AI growth is forcing a full rethink of how knowledge facilities get designed and constructed to deal with the insane cooling calls for. The video exhibits that Tesla is getting in on the sport too with such infrastructure.

The video additionally exhibits what seems to be groundwork for a man-made water reservoir on the location, with a crew laying out huge black sheets on prime. Whereas Tesla hasn’t detailed its functions, maintaining a wholesome provide of water is essential for big knowledge facilities’ cooling methods and energy era wants. The largest server farms can guzzle billions of gallons yearly.

Behind the scenes, the ability’s street to completion has been something however easy crusing. A report from The Data instructed that Elon Musk has been “livid” over the delays plaguing the undertaking, which is vital to attaining his imaginative and prescient of full self-driving capabilities for Tesla’s electrical autos.

When Musk toured the location again in mid-April, he discovered a facility nonetheless lacking most of its roof and floor ground as a result of supply snafus, inclement climate, and different development woes. His tunneling enterprise, The Boring Firm, was supposed to construct an underground street for Cybertrucks to autonomously traverse the campus. However with that tunnel but to materialize, the info heart’s floor ground has been left in limbo.

The fallout was swift – Amir Mirshahi, the undertaking’s director of infrastructure, was given his strolling papers.

Issues have not been going nice for Tesla as a complete both. Every week after Mirshahi’s firing, the corporate laid off 10% of its workforce – probably a results of slowing demand for the corporate’s EVs. A number of senior executives have additionally bid adieu to the electrical automaker amid a difficult quarter that noticed automobile deliveries dip by 8.5% year-over-year.