Tesla has a not-so-secret plan to replace a fundamental-but-flawed building block of the Internet — Musk's Exascale DOJO supercomputer will use TTPoE instead of the universal TCP and wants the world to embrace it

Tesla is looking to replace the widely-used Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) with its own offering.

The company says Tesla Transport Protocol over Ethernet (TTPoE) is designed to support high-speed, low-latency communication, especially in environments where reliable data transfer is essential.

TTPoE, integral to Tesla’s DOJO supercomputer, is optimized for the specific demands of Tesla’s systems, but Elon Musk’s firm is promoting it as a potential new standard for broader use beyond its own operations.

UltraEthernet Consortium

TTPoE is executed entirely in hardware and aids efficient data transmission across Ethernet networks without requiring special switches, instead using standard Layer 2 transport. Unlike lossless RDMA networks, TTPoE anticipates packet loss and includes mechanisms to retry transmissions, making it distinct from traditional protocols like TCP or UDP.

TTPoE offers enhanced security features, such as encryption and authentication, to protect data integrity. This makes it particularly useful in automotive and industrial applications where managing large data sets securely and efficiently is essential.

The protocol also supports scalability, allowing it to meet the growing data demands of modern electric vehicles, including those needed for autonomous driving and over-the-air updates.

The latest information about TTPoE comes from ServeTheHome, which reported on Tesla’s presentation at the Hot Chips 2024 symposium in Stanford, California. Tesla shared details about TTPoE’s architecture and suggested that TTPoE could offer lower one-way write latency over switches, including NVLink. It also announced its participation in the UltraEthernet Consortium (UEC).

You can view some of the slides Tesla shared over at ServeTheHome. The site’s Patrick Kennedy noted, “This is one of those interesting talks, but at some point it would be cool if this was used beyond just DOJO. It feels like a lot of lifting to do making custom NICs, custom protocols, and so forth for a system and not trying to benefit from economies of scale. It was cool to see that Tesla is bringing this to the UltraEthernet Consortium.”