Intel 14A finally has a big name backing it up, and it’s Elon Musk, who will be leveraging the process technology at the TeraFab project.
Intel & Elon Partnership Deeper Than Expected As Musk Announces 14A Process Technology For Tesla’s TeraFab
During its Q1 2026 earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made it official that the TeraFab project was going to use 14A, Intel’s much-discussed process technology, which is expected to be a game-changer for them in the Foundry business.
Elon stated that they (Tesla) are excited to use the Intel 14A process, calling it “State-of-the-Art”. He also acknowledged that 14A isn’t complete yet, which is him referring to the fact that 14A isn’t viable for mass production at the moment, but by the time TeraFab scales up, the process technology will be in a much more mature state, and that’s when TeraFab will be primed to use Intel’s bleeding-edge tech to produce Tesla’s latest custom silicon.
Intel is excited to partner with us on some of the core manufacturing technologies. We plan to use Intel’s 14A process, which is state-of-the-art and in fact, not yet totally complete. Given that by the time Terafab scales up, 14A will be probably fairly mature or ready for prime time, 14A seems like the right move. We have a great relationship with Intel. A lot of respect for the CEO, the CTO and the new team there. We think it’s going to be a great partnership.
Elon Musk – Tesla CEO
The announcement comes just days after industry insiders reported that Intel and Elon Musk were going to disclose the full details of the TeraFab project. Musk himself has been sharing Tesla’s progress in the AI custom silicon business, leveraging Samsung and TSMC to make their latest chips, such as AI5, AI6, and AI6.5.
Whether this will be a licensing deal to enable manufacturing silicon on Intel’s 14A node, or something else, needs to be confirmed. Besides that, TeraFab is expected to become operational by 2029, producing around 3000 wafers per month in the pilot phase before commencing mass production. Elon has already stated that TSMC and others are unable to keep up with his company’s demand, which is what led him to diversify his chipmaking business at other foundries and even to start constructing his own chipmaking facility.
Tesla could be just one of the many big names that Intel is expected to win as a customer for its 14A process node technology this year. But the confirmation from Tesla will definitely put more confidence in Intel’s 14A tech, and more importantly, in Intel itself as a serious Foundry player.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech’s Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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