Tesla's AI5 Tape-Out Makes Samsung a Necessary Bet

Custom silicon at the frontier of AI hardware has always been understood as a TSMC story — until Tesla made it a Samsung story too. The AI5 chip's production provenance, confirmed by the fab code etched into the silicon itself, establishes Samsung not as a backup supplier but as the manufacturer of record for one of the most closely watched custom AI chips outside the hyperscaler programs. That distinction matters because Samsung's 2nm node credibility has been contested; Tesla's multi-generational commitment — AI5 in production, …