Tesla’s A15, also called the AI5 chip, is a groundbreaking advancement in autonomous driving hardware, heralding roughly 40 times the performance of the previous HW4 system. This chip offers substantial improvements in raw compute power, which allows real-time processing of vast streams of visual and sensor data. It also boasts significantly increased onboard memory—approximately nine times more—which supports larger and more complex neural network models that can interpret the driving environment with far greater detail and nuance. Specialized machine learning accelerators within the AI5 chip are optimized for Tesla’s proprietary neural network operations, such as efficiently executing softmax math functions critical for decision making. Additionally, enhanced video compression and sensor fusion improve environmental perception despite Tesla’s reliance solely on cameras rather than lidar. The increase in memory bandwidth empowers the AI to consider longer driving contexts, leading to better predictions and handling of rare or complex scenarios. By supporting mixed-precision computation, the chip achieves a balance between inference speed and power efficiency, crucial for maintaining vehicle performance and battery life. This hardware leap enables Tesla to expand their FSD software models from millions to potentially billions of parameters, increasing sophistication and driving decision quality. While AI5 hardware rollout is expected to become widespread by late 2026 or early 2027, Tesla is already testing the chip in limited deployments. Overall, the AI5 chip sets the technical foundation necessary to approach much higher levels of autonomous driving safety and performance than current systems.