In the third century BC the city of Rhodes, in celebration of the defeat of Demetrius I of Macedonia, built the Colossus, a 30-metre-high statue of the sun god Helios. It became one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Now there is a new Colossus to wonder at, not a statue but a supercomputer, reputed to be the most powerful in the world. So which American tech company built it? Apple, IBM, Google, OpenAI? Actually, none of the above. The new Colossus has been built by a US auto company… Tesla. How come?
In the space of 14 years, Tesla has risen from being the manufacturer of an electric sports car based on the Lotus Elise and powered by mobile phone batteries to an EV behemoth which, despite competition from China’s BYD (Build Your Dreams), is the world’s largest producer of EVs. Tesla has achieved this with only two mainstream models – the Model 3 sedan and the Model Y, a mid-size SUV.
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