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Tesla will spend $500 million to build one of its so-called \u201cDojo\u201d supercomputers at its Buffalo, New York factory, the state\u2019s governor<\/a> Kathy Hochul said Friday during a news conference just days after\u00a0CEO Elon Musk called the project a \u201clong shot.\u201d<\/p>\n Tesla\u2019s decision was \u201cinformed by New York\u2019s reliable power supply, strong talent pipeline and availability of usable space for the project,\u201d according to Hochul\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Dojo, which was first announced at Tesla\u2019s \u201cAI Day\u201d event in 2021, is a supercomputer meant to help advance the company\u2019s still-unrealized goal of building a self-driving car. Tesla plans to use the supercomputer to process reams of video data that come off of its electric vehicles in order to train the AI that now powers its most advanced driver assistance software, which it calls Full Self-Driving Beta. Musk said last year<\/a> that Tesla plans to spend \u201cwell over $1 billion\u201d on Dojo.<\/p>\n Bringing the Dojo project to Buffalo is the latest shift in Tesla\u2019s priorities for the location, which has turned into something of a boondoggle<\/a> for New York state. Once dubbed \u201cGigafactory 2,\u201d Tesla took over the factory from SolarCity when it acquired the troubled solar panel company in 2016. The state had already committed $750 million to the plant by that point. Tesla promised to make Solar Roof tiles there, but struggled to produce the product at scale. Its partner, Panasonic, pulled out of the plant in 2020, and Tesla pivoted to employing people who labeled training data<\/a> for its less-advanced Autopilot software.<\/p>\n