Connect with us

News

Elon Musk’s Boring Company secures contract for Las Vegas transport tunnel

Published

on

Despite receiving some pushback from two board members of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, The Boring Company has nevertheless secured a contract to build a transport tunnel under the LVCA’s campus. The project, which was approved following a vote by the LVCA’s board on Wednesday, will be comprised of two tunnels that are designed to transport passengers from the LVCA campus’ New Exhibit Hall to the existing North/Central Hall.

The Boring Company’s Las Vegas tunnel is expected to be completed in time for the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show, which will be held in January. Elon Musk has expressed his optimism at the project’s potential completion date, stating on Twitter that the transport tunnel could be operational by the end of 2019. This is a very aggressive timetable, though the relatively short length of the tunnel at less than one mile could improve the Boring Company’s chances at completing the project within Musk’s target timeframe.

The Las Vegas transport tunnel will utilize a Loop System, which is comprised of autonomous electric vehicles (AEV) that can carry passengers from one point to another. The Boring Company notes that standard AEVs are Tesla Model X and Model 3 vehicles, though high-occupancy AEVs are also under development. The latter utilizes a modified Model X chassis that is capable of transporting up to 16 passengers with both sitting and standing room. Provided that The Boring Company could complete the Las Vegas transport tunnel without delays, test runs in the system could begin as early as November 2020, according to the project’s public contract.

In its vote on Wednesday, the LVCA granted a $48.6 million contract to the tunneling startup, though the total project is estimated to cost around $52.5 million. Two-thirds of the total funding for the project will not be released to the tunneling startup until the transport tunnel is complete. Previous reports also hinted that if the Boring Company is unable to receive a certificate of occupancy for the transport tunnel, the LVCA will get back its entire investment.

While the Boring Company was able to secure the Las Vegas contract, the tunneling startup’s proposal still met some pushback from two board members of the LVCA. In recent weeks, board members Michele Fiore and Carolyn Goodman argued against the Boring Company’s proposal, citing the startup’s inexperience. The two board members suggested that the LVCA adopt the proposal of Austria-based Doppelmayr Garaventa Group instead, which will create an above-ground transit system that would cost around $215 million to complete.

Advertisement
-->

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

News

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explains difference between Tesla FSD and Alpamayo

“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class,” the Nvidia CEO said.

Published

on

Credit: Grok Imagine

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has offered high praise for Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system during a Q&A at CES 2026, calling it “world-class” and “state-of-the-art” in design, training, and performance. 

More importantly, he also shared some insights about the key differences between FSD and Nvidia’s recently announced Alpamayo system. 

Jensen Huang’s praise for Tesla FSD

Nvidia made headlines at CES following its announcement of Alpamayo, which uses artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of autonomous driving solutions. Due to its focus on AI, many started speculating that Alpamayo would be a direct rival to FSD. This was somewhat addressed by Elon Musk, who predicted that “they will find that it’s easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution.”

During his Q&A, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was asked about the difference between FSD and Alpamayo. His response was extensive:

“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class. They’ve been working on it for quite some time. It’s world-class not only in the number of miles it’s accumulated, but in the way it’s designed, the way they do training, data collection, curation, synthetic data generation, and all of their simulation technologies. 

Advertisement
-->

“Of course, the latest generation is end-to-end Full Self-Driving—meaning it’s one large model trained end to end. And so… Elon’s AD system is, in every way, 100% state-of-the-art. I’m really quite impressed by the technology. I have it, and I drive it in our house, and it works incredibly well,” the Nvidia CEO said. 

Nvidia’s platform approach vs Tesla’s integration

Huang also stated that Nvidia’s Alpamayo system was built around a fundamentally different philosophy from Tesla’s. Rather than developing self-driving cars itself, Nvidia supplies the full autonomous technology stack for other companies to use.

“Nvidia doesn’t build self-driving cars. We build the full stack so others can,” Huang said, explaining that Nvidia provides separate systems for training, simulation, and in-vehicle computing, all supported by shared software.

He added that customers can adopt as much or as little of the platform as they need, noting that Nvidia works across the industry, including with Tesla on training systems and companies like Waymo, XPeng, and Nuro on vehicle computing.

“So our system is really quite pervasive because we’re a technology platform provider. That’s the primary difference. There’s no question in our mind that, of the billion cars on the road today, in another 10 years’ time, hundreds of millions of them will have great autonomous capability. This is likely one of the largest, fastest-growing technology industries over the next decade.”

Advertisement
-->

He also emphasized Nvidia’s open approach, saying the company open-sources its models and helps partners train their own systems. “We’re not a self-driving car company. We’re enabling the autonomous industry,” Huang said.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines

The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.

Published

on

Credit: xAI/X

xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, has purchased five additional 380 MW natural gas turbines from South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to power its growing supercomputer clusters. 

The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.

xAI’s turbine deal details

News of xAI’s new turbines was shared on social media platform X, with user @SemiAnalysis_ stating that the turbines were produced by South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility. As noted in an Asian Business Daily report, Doosan Enerbility announced last October that it signed a contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines for a major U.S. tech company. Doosan later noted in December that it secured an order for three more 380 MW gas turbines.

As per the X user, the gas turbines would power an additional 600,000+ GB200 NVL72 equivalent size cluster. This should make xAI’s facilities among the largest in the world. In a reply, Elon Musk confirmed that xAI did purchase the turbines. “True,” Musk wrote in a post on X. 

xAI’s ambitions 

Recent reports have indicated that xAI closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. The funding, as per the AI startup, “will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products.”

Advertisement
-->

The company also teased the rollout of its upcoming frontier AI model. “Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote in a post on its website. 

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s xAI closes upsized $20B Series E funding round

xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website. 

Published

on

xAI-supercomputer-memphis-environment-pushback
Credit: xAI

xAI has closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. 

xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website. 

A $20 billion Series E round

As noted by the artificial intelligence startup in its post, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. 

Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.

As xAI stated, “This financing will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products reaching billions of users, and fuel groundbreaking research advancing xAI’s core mission: Understanding the Universe.”

Advertisement
-->

xAI’s core mission

Th Series E funding builds on xAI’s previous rounds, powering Grok advancements and massive compute expansions like the Memphis supercluster. The upsized demand reflects growing recognition of xAI’s potential in frontier AI.

xAI also highlighted several of its breakthroughs in 2025, from the buildout of Colossus I and II, which ended with over 1 million H100 GPU equivalents, and the rollout of the Grok 4 Series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine, among others. The company also confirmed that work is already underway to train the flagship large language model’s next iteration, Grok 5. 

“Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote. 

Continue Reading