Elon Musk Says China Will Win The AI Race, But Here's Where SpaceX Will Win
Complete. Here is the key summaryElon Musk predicts that Google will dominate the AI race in the West, while China will lead on Earth, and SpaceX will excel in space. He highlights challenges in AI development, noting that the limiting factor will shift from chips to energy on Earth, then back to chips with advancements in space solar power. Musk also discussed Tesla's chip production goals and the Terafab project, aimed at self-driving technology, while reaffirming partnerships with Nvidia for chip sourcing.
Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has shared that Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) will win the AI race in the West, while China stands to win AI on Earth, days after claiming that his enterprises will exceed rivals in the development of the technology.
Google Will Win AI In The West
On Thursday, Musk, in a response to user Bindu Reddy on X, who complained of issues with Google’s Gemini 3.0 model, made his predictions. “Google will win the AI race in the West, China on Earth and SpaceX in space,” he said in his response, positioning his company as the leader in the tech sector’s orbital data center push.
Google’s AI arm, DeepMind, has accelerated its development efforts, bringing in Jasjeet Sekhon as chief strategy officer. Sekhon was previously the chief scientist and head of AI at Bridgewater Associates.
Google will win the AI race in the West, China on Earth and SpaceX in space
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 19, 2026
Elon Musk On Chip Production
The CEO also outlined the challenges that artificial intelligence currently faces when responding to a user, who predicted that the price of AI hardware and compute will rise due to linear supply and an increase in demand.
“The limiting factor will shift from chips to energy on Earth,” he said, predicting that AI’s power demand would present challenges for the energy sector. However, Musk then shared that the limiting factor for the technology would revert “back to chips when space solar (star) power is unlocked.”
The limiting factor will shift from chips to energy on Earth, then back to chips when space solar (star) power is unlocked
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 19, 2026
Nvidia’s Orbital Datacenter Goal, Tesla’s Terafab
At the GTC 2026 event earlier this week, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang shared that the company was developing the Space-1 Vera Rubin Module chip, which, the CEO shared, was designed to carry out space-based AI compute.
Meanwhile, Musk reaffirmed Tesla’s chip production goals, sharing that the company’s Terafab project would begin operations shortly, targeting self-driving chips for the Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology and the Optimus humanoid robot.
Musk also outlined that Tesla’s AI5 chip, which features a half reticle architecture, could see applications in data center training, but reaffirmed that it was primarily going to be used in Optimus and Tesla’s FSD. The billionaire also shared that SpaceX and Tesla remained committed to sourcing chips from Nvidia despite the Terafab goal.
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