Alistair Barr/Business Insider
- Elon Musk is building supercomputers using advanced AI for Tesla’s self-driving vehicles.
- Tesla’s new AI data center in Palo Alto requires way more electricity, impacting local infrastructure.
- Tesla wants a $24 million electric substation upgrade done in months, not years.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is building supercomputers that use advanced AI to teach its vehicles how to drive themselves.
One of these huge new AI data centers is being built at a Tesla office in the Silicon Valley town of Palo Alto.
At the back of the parking lot, down a small slop, you can find the tricky reality of AI projects like this: AI data centers consume way more electricity than traditional cloud facilities. This is sparking a surge in demand that is rippling across the grid in disruptive ways.
In mid-August, I pulled up behind Tesla’s office parking lot to check out the scene. There, in a dusty gravel area, workers toiled to upgrade an electrical substation for CPAU, Palo Alto ‘s small utility. This is the facility that will send power to Tesla’s AI machines.