In an announcement on Wednesday, tech giant Apple revealed that it is building a big battery storage project at a Northern California solar farm. The project, which was approved by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors last year, will store up to 240 MWh of energy, and be used to help power the company’s corporate headquarters in Cupertino.
For such an ambitious project—one that Apple describes as among the largest energy storage systems in the country—Apple has decided to partner with Tesla, the undisputed leader in the electric vehicle sector and a company with much experience in the battery sector.
As per a statement from the Monterey County’s planning chief to The Verge, Apple’s battery storage installation would comprise 85 Megapacks, Tesla’s flagship energy storage system that’s specifically designed for grid use.
Apple has declined to comment on the matter, and Tesla has not issued a response about reports on the battery storage project.
In a press release, Apple noted that the 240 MWh system would be enough to power 7,000 homes for one day. The project will also store energy gathered from the California Flats, a 130 MW solar farm. Speaking about the upcoming project, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives Lisa Jackson told Reuters that the big battery would help grid stabilization.
“The challenge with clean energy – solar and wind – is that it’s by definition intermittent. If we can do it, and we can show that it works for us, it takes away the concerns about intermittency, and it helps the grid in terms of stabilization. It’s something that can be imitated or built upon by other companies,” the Apple VP said.
While Apple and Tesla operate in different sectors, the two companies have a history of poaching talent from each other. Elon Musk has also been quite open about his past experiences with Apple’s executives. According to the Tesla CEO, he once tried to pitch the idea of Apple buying Tesla during the Model 3 ramp’s darkest days, but Tim Cook refused to take the meeting. In a way, the Apple CEO’s reported refusal to meet with Musk worked well in Tesla’s favor, as Musk was eventually able to lead the company to even higher heights once the Model 3 ramp was ironed out.
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Tesla seen as early winner as Canada reopens door to China-made EVs
Tesla had already prepared for Chinese exports to Canada in 2023 by equipping its Shanghai Gigafactory to produce a Canada-specific version of the Model Y.
Tesla seems poised to be an early beneficiary of Canada’s decision to reopen imports of Chinese-made electric vehicles, following the removal of a 100% tariff that halted shipments last year.
Thanks to Giga Shanghai’s capability to produce Canadian-spec vehicles, it might only be a matter of time before Tesla is able to export vehicles to Canada from China once more.
Under the new U.S.–Canada trade agreement, Canada will allow up to 49,000 vehicles per year to be imported from China at a 6.1% tariff, with the quota potentially rising to 70,000 units within five years, according to Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Half of the initial quota is reserved for vehicles priced under CAD 35,000, a threshold above current Tesla models, though the electric vehicle maker could still benefit from the rule change, as noted in a Reuters report.
Tesla had already prepared for Chinese exports to Canada in 2023 by equipping its Shanghai Gigafactory to produce a Canada-specific version of the Model Y. That year, Tesla began shipping vehicles from Shanghai to Canada, contributing to a sharp 460% year-over-year increase in China-built vehicle imports through Vancouver.
When Ottawa imposed a 100% tariff in 2024, however, Tesla halted those shipments and shifted Canadian supply to its U.S. and Berlin factories. With tariffs now reduced, Tesla could quickly resume China-to-Canada exports.
Beyond manufacturing flexibility, Tesla could also benefit from its established retail presence in Canada. The automaker operates 39 stores across Canada, while Chinese brands like BYD and Nio have yet to enter the Canadian market directly. Tesla’s relatively small lineup, which is comprised of four core models plus the Cybertruck, allows it to move faster on marketing and logistics than competitors with broader portfolios.
Elon Musk
Tesla confirms that work on Dojo 3 has officially resumed
“Now that the AI5 chip design is in good shape, Tesla will restart work on Dojo 3,” Elon Musk wrote in a post on X.
Tesla has restarted work on its Dojo 3 initiative, its in-house AI training supercomputer, now that its AI5 chip design has reached a stable stage.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed the update in a recent post on X.
Tesla’s Dojo 3 initiative restarted
In a post on X, Musk said that with the AI5 chip design now “in good shape,” Tesla will resume work on Dojo 3. He added that Tesla is hiring engineers interested in working on what he expects will become the highest-volume AI chips in the world.
“Now that the AI5 chip design is in good shape, Tesla will restart work on Dojo3. If you’re interested in working on what will be the highest volume chips in the world, send a note to AI_Chips@Tesla.com with 3 bullet points on the toughest technical problems you’ve solved,” Musk wrote in his post on X.
Musk’s comment followed a series of recent posts outlining Tesla’s broader AI chip roadmap. In another update, he stated that Tesla’s AI4 chip alone would achieve self-driving safety levels well above human drivers, AI5 would make vehicles “almost perfect” while significantly enhancing Optimus, and AI6 would be focused on Optimus and data center applications.
Musk then highlighted that AI7/Dojo 3 will be designed to support space-based AI compute.
Tesla’s AI roadmap
Musk’s latest comments helped resolve some confusion that emerged last year about Project Dojo’s future. At the time, Musk stated on X that Tesla was stepping back from Dojo because it did not make sense to split resources across multiple AI chip architectures.
He suggested that clustering large numbers of Tesla AI5 and AI6 chips for training could effectively serve the same purpose as a dedicated Dojo successor. “In a supercomputer cluster, it would make sense to put many AI5/AI6 chips on a board, whether for inference or training, simply to reduce network cabling complexity & cost by a few orders of magnitude,” Musk wrote at the time.
Musk later reinforced that idea by responding positively to an X post stating that Tesla’s AI6 chip would effectively be the new Dojo. Considering his recent updates on X, however, it appears that Tesla will be using AI7, not AI6, as its dedicated Dojo successor. The CEO did state that Tesla’s AI7, AI8, and AI9 chips will be developed in short, nine-month cycles, so Dojo’s deployment might actually be sooner than expected.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s xAI brings 1GW Colossus 2 AI training cluster online
Elon Musk shared his update in a recent post on social media platform X.
xAI has brought its Colossus 2 supercomputer online, making it the first gigawatt-scale AI training cluster in the world, and it’s about to get even bigger in a few months.
Elon Musk shared his update in a recent post on social media platform X.
Colossus 2 goes live
The Colossus 2 supercomputer, together with its predecessor, Colossus 1, are used by xAI to primarily train and refine the company’s Grok large language model. In a post on X, Musk stated that Colossus 2 is already operational, making it the first gigawatt training cluster in the world.
But what’s even more remarkable is that it would be upgraded to 1.5 GW of power in April. Even in its current iteration, however, the Colossus 2 supercomputer already exceeds the peak demand of San Francisco.
Commentary from users of the social media platform highlighted the speed of execution behind the project. Colossus 1 went from site preparation to full operation in 122 days, while Colossus 2 went live by crossing the 1-GW barrier and is targeting a total capacity of roughly 2 GW. This far exceeds the speed of xAI’s primary rivals.
Funding fuels rapid expansion
xAI’s Colossus 2 launch follows xAI’s recently closed, upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, which exceeded its initial $15 billion target. The company said the capital will be used to accelerate infrastructure scaling and AI product development.
The round attracted a broad group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco also continued their support, helping xAI build what it describes as the world’s largest GPU clusters.
xAI said the funding will accelerate its infrastructure buildout, enable rapid deployment of AI products to billions of users, and support research tied to its mission of understanding the universe. The company noted that its Colossus 1 and 2 systems now represent more than one million H100 GPU equivalents, alongside recent releases including the Grok 4 series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine. Training is also already underway for its next flagship model, Grok 5.
Tesla seen as early winner as Canada reopens door to China-made EVs
Tesla confirms that work on Dojo 3 has officially resumed
