Elon Musk: More money for training humanoid robot Tesla Optimus Bot

Tesla boss Elon Musk intends to invest more money in the training infrastructure for the humanoid robot Optimus Bot. Musk made this statement to investors on Wednesday. Musk did not say exactly how much money would be involved. However, he made it clear that this step was essential.

Training a robot with artificial intelligence (AI) is significantly more complex than that of a Tesla electric vehicle. The training requirements are around 10 times higher than for a car. A robot has "probably 1000 times" more functions than a car, Musk said. This would not mean that the training effort would also increase a thousandfold, but it would "probably be tenfold".

Important robot training

In order to bring the Optimus Bot onto the market as a general-purpose robot, it must be able to master many functions or be specially trained for certain tasks in industry. Tesla will therefore continue to invest in the training infrastructure at its headquarters in Texas. Musk did not explicitly say what kind of infrastructure is meant by this. However, it is likely to be primarily computing power. Musk hinted that it would not mean that Tesla would spend "500 billion dollars on training computers".

The Tesla boss was alluding to the White House's announcement that the Stargate project would receive around 500 billion US dollars from Open AI and other companies for the construction of AI data centers. Musk himself had claimed that there was not enough money for this, but the companies involved and the White House denied this.

However, Musk tried to reassure investors: The costs for the robot's AI training would decrease over time. He believes the investment is important and a "pretty good deal". The Tesla boss believes that the Optimus Bot has the potential to generate sales of 10 billion dollars. "That's really crazy," he added.

Tesla has currently invested just over 5 billion dollars in AI-related investments, including the corresponding infrastructure. This includes a cluster of 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs for AI training. The project was only completed after a delay. Musk fired the project manager as a result.

However, no real progress has been made with the Optimus Bot in terms of its market launch. Musk's grandiose promises regularly fall flat. The Optimus Bot was supposed to be delivered to customers as early as 2022. So far, however, only a manageable number of the humanoid robots are being tested in Tesla factories. According to Musk's latest announcement, the robot will now be delivered to the first customers in 2026. However, the Optimus Bot will already be late compared to its competitors. The robotics company Figure AI, for example, has already sold the first Figure 02 humanoid robots to customers.

(olb)