Cortex supercomputer Data Center — Austin, TX · Ask the Grid

Overview

Exact-site power: 130 MW; Critical IT Load · Reported
Status: Operating; Operating; Tesla's Cortex 1 is listed as in production.
On-site generation: 15 MW; Dedicated power supply · Reported
Opened: Q4 2024; Cortex 1
Compute profile: AI HPC; Full Self-Driving (FSD) and autonomous-driving neural-network training · Autonomous-vehicle and fleet-data processing
Cooling design: Water, primarily reclaimed rainwater, circulated through cooling towers and reportedly recycled for most of the system's operation.; Cooling towers serving the Cortex cooling infrastructure. · Four large underground water tanks used to collect and store reclaimed rainwater for Cortex 1 cooling. · A recirculating water-cooling system in which most cooling water is recycled, with some loss as vapor.

Project scope: Tesla's Cortex 1 is a dedicated data-center building at Gigafactory Texas. Tesla completed deployment of a 50,000-Nvidia-H100 training cluster during Q4 2024, and Tesla's later reporting lists Cortex 1 as in production with more than 100,000 H100-equivalent capacity.
Power and grid: Reported data-center power/cooling requirement associated with Cortex 1 at Giga Texas; kept separate from campus gross power and Cortex 2.0.
Compute role: Tesla-owned, internally operated AI/HPC training cluster at Gigafactory Texas in Austin. The initial Cortex cluster came online in Q4 2024 with 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs; Tesla expanded Cortex in 2025.
Cooling and environment: Cooling towers serving the Cortex cooling infrastructure. Four large underground water tanks used to collect and store reclaimed rainwater for Cortex 1 cooling. A recirculating water-cooling system in which most cooling water is recycled, with some loss as vapor.

Cortex 1

Cortex 1 is Tesla's Texas AI-training-compute facility. Tesla reports installed annual capacity of more than 100,000 H100-equivalent GPUs for Cortex 1, while a contemporaneous trade report states that the initial 50,000-GPU cluster went live during Q4 2024. No site-specific electrical MW capacity was identified.

Power and grid

Capacity	Basis	Status	Scope	As of
130 MW	Critical IT Load	Reported	Cortex 1	2025-05-15
Reported data-center power/cooling requirement associated with Cortex 1 at Giga Texas; kept separate from campus gross power and Cortex 2.0.
130 MW	Battery Storage	Reported	Cortex 1	2025-05-15
Behind-the-meter Megapack system reported for the Giga Texas data center, with 260 MWh of storage; the source identifies it as a backup-power installation.
125 MW	Battery Storage	Reported	Cortex 1	2025-05-15
Front-of-the-meter ERCOT-participating Megapack system reported at the Tesla Giga Texas facility, with 250 MWh; it is described as capable of backup power during a grid outage.
15 MW	Onsite Generation	Reported	Campus	2025-05-15
Rooftop solar capacity reported for the overall Giga Texas facility; the source does not allocate this generation specifically to Cortex.

Balancing authority: ERCOT
ISO / RTO: ERCOT
Redundancy: Two distinct Megapack installations are reported at the facility: one behind the meter and one front of the meter. The available evidence supports battery-backed backup and ride-through functions, but does not establish a conventional N+1 or 2N electrical design for Cortex.
Backup generation: Megapack battery systems are reported for backup power, including a 130 MW/260 MWh behind-the-meter system and a 125 MW/250 MWh front-of-the-meter system. No Cortex-specific diesel or gas-generator capacity was established.
Onsite generation: A 15 MW rooftop solar system is reported for the overall Giga Texas facility; no source allocates a portion specifically to Cortex.
Storage: Two Megapack installations are reported at Giga Texas: a 130 MW/260 MWh behind-the-meter data-center system and a 125 MW/250 MWh front-of-the-meter ERCOT-participating system.
Power sources: ERCOT grid · Rooftop solar at the Giga Texas campus · Behind-the-meter and front-of-the-meter Megapack battery systems
Grid flexibility: Megapacks are described as supporting AI-load smoothing, low-voltage ride-through, flexible grid connection, and ERCOT participation. The front-of-the-meter system is also described as capable of providing backup power during a grid outage.

Facility and development

Construction: Tesla's Cortex 1 is a dedicated data-center building at Gigafactory Texas. Tesla completed deployment of a 50,000-Nvidia-H100 training cluster during Q4 2024, and Tesla's later reporting lists Cortex 1 as in production with more than 100,000 H100-equivalent capacity. Cortex 2 is a separate subsequent construction phase and is excluded from this record.
Facility class: AI HPC
Workloads: Full Self-Driving (FSD) and autonomous-driving neural-network training · Autonomous-vehicle and fleet-data processing · Optimus humanoid-robot hardware and software training · Real-world AI, perception, planning, and control model development
Accelerators: 50,000
Cooling systems: Cooling towers serving the Cortex cooling infrastructure. · Four large underground water tanks used to collect and store reclaimed rainwater for Cortex 1 cooling. · A recirculating water-cooling system in which most cooling water is recycled, with some loss as vapor.
Cooling medium: Water, primarily reclaimed rainwater, circulated through cooling towers and reportedly recycled for most of the system's operation.
Water source: Primarily reclaimed rainwater collected and stored in four underground tanks; most of the cooling water is reportedly recycled.
Fiber and connectivity: Internal high-density optical networking is reported, including MPO (Multi-Fiber Push-On) fiber cables used to interconnect Cortex compute systems for demanding AI-training data flows. No external carrier, cloud-on-ramp, or long-haul fiber details were disclosed.
Operating context: Tesla-owned, internally operated AI/HPC training cluster at Gigafactory Texas in Austin. The initial Cortex cluster came online in Q4 2024 with 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs; Tesla expanded Cortex in 2025. Cortex 2 is a separate subsequent project and is excluded from this record. It is not presented as a retail colocation or third-party cloud facility.
Air permits: TCEQ Air Permit No. 162531 applies to Tesla's Giga Texas automobile and cell-material facilities at 1 Tesla Road, Austin. The permit does not identify Cortex as a separate covered source, so its applicability to the Cortex building specifically is unconfirmed.
Emissions: The applicable Giga Texas air-permit record identifies cooling-tower drift as a source of PM, PM10, and PM2.5 and requires drift controls, monitoring, and emissions calculations. No Cortex-specific emissions rate or separate Cortex air permit was identified.
Environmental commitments: Tesla is reportedly developing large-scale rainwater-capture and reclaimed-water systems at Giga Texas to reduce potable-water consumption. · Tesla is reportedly planning a waste-heat-recovery system for the Giga Texas data center to redirect recovered heat for process heating.
Environmental impacts: Cooling-water losses occur through vaporization, although available reporting states that most water is recycled. · TCEQ's Giga Texas air permit treats cooling-tower drift as particulate emissions, including PM, PM10, and PM2.5, and requires drift eliminators, dissolved-solids monitoring, and emissions calculations. Cortex-specific emission quantities were not identified.
Public hearings: On October 17, 2023, Travis County commissioners considered and unanimously approved Tesla’s $750,000 community-investment spending plan; the Austin Monitor reported that no one spoke in opposition at that meeting. The hearing concerned the broader Giga Texas incentive agreement, not Cortex specifically. · At a Travis County budget hearing in August 2025, residents urged commissioners to reconsider Tesla’s broader tax incentives while the county reviewed compliance with the Giga Texas agreement. The testimony concerned the parent campus and tax deal, not Cortex specifically.
Community benefits: No community benefit was identified as attributable specifically to Cortex 1. The documented benefits belong to the broader Giga Texas campus: Tesla approved a $750,000 community-investment plan, including $376,880 for additional Del Valle ISD teachers, $100,000 for student career development, $100,000 for sustainability and environmental programming at local schools, and $75,000 for Austin Area Urban League sustainability training. · Tesla’s parent-campus incentive agreement required annual community investments and employment commitments; these should not be treated as Cortex-specific benefits.
Petitions: Tesla petitioned to release nearly 2,100 acres associated with the broader Giga Texas property from Austin’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. The petition concerns the parent campus, not a separately identified Cortex 1 parcel.
Opposition or litigation: Tesla’s 2025 Form 10-K states that Cortex, identified as Tesla’s training cluster at Gigafactory Texas, has incited protests, some escalating to violence targeting Tesla’s operations, products, and personnel. The filing does not identify the protest organizations or establish that all such protests occurred at the Cortex building. · Perceptive Automata LLC v. Tesla, Inc., Case No. 2:25-cv-00742, was a patent-infringement action whose complaint expressly identified Cortex 1 at Tesla’s Austin Gigafactory as an alleged infringing product or service involved in training Full Self-Driving systems. The case was dismissed without prejudice by order signed January 3, 2026, with the docket recording termination on January 5, 2026. · At the broader Giga Texas campus level, local reporting describes environmental-regulatory concerns after Tesla’s petition to leave Austin’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, including concerns about water and air-quality standards. Separate local reporting also describes residents’ opposition to Tesla’s county tax incentives, citing environmental, worker-safety, and labor concerns; these reports do not attribute those issues specifically to Cortex 1.

Identity and campus: Gigafactory Texas (Giga Texas)
Also reported as Cortex 1.
Regulatory record: Tesla’s Q2 2026 investor update identifies Cortex 1 as Texas AI-training compute in production, with installed capacity above 90 MW. The available records do not identify a Cortex 1-specific permit, power-purchase agreement, utility contract, land transaction, project-cost disclosure, contractor, or financier. Travis County’s documented economic-development agreement concerns the broader Colorado River Project administered by Tesla/Giga Texas and is not shown to apply specifically to the Cortex building.

Cortex supercomputer

Cortex supercomputer

Overview

Cortex 1

Power and grid

Facility and development

Timeline

Organizations

Sources

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