Nvidia Partners With Bosch to Join the Race for Self-Driving Cars

By Edward Leano, Christian Post Contributor Friday, March 17, 2017

Chipmaking giant Nvidia has teamed up with automotive industry supplier Bosch in a bid to stake its claim in the impending self-driving car market. Bosch's chief executive officer announced the partnership last Wednesday, March 15.

The CEO of Robert Bosch GmbH, Volkmar Denner, announced the collaboration with Nvidia Corporation at the Bosch Connected World event in Berlin on Wednesday, March 15, according to a report by Biz Journals. This announcement comes on the heels of the news that Intel has just bought Israel-based Mobileye, a self-driving car technology firm, for $15.3 billion last Monday.

This move has entered Nvidia into the race toward the first to successfully enter a self-driving car with artificial intelligence (AI) into the mainstream automotive market. Analysts have estimated that Nvidia is in the lead in the imminent market, just ahead of its competitors such as Intel and Qualcomm.

The partnership will center on the work to bring Nvidia's upcoming Xavier processor into cars that can take advantage of the specialized design of the chip. According to the coverage by Silicon Angle, the Xavier is specifically created for the automotive sector, combining an eight-core central processing unit (CPU) with a new graphics processing unit (GPU) called Volta, which is a new 12-nanometer design by Nvidia, as reported by sources.

The Xavier has been touted as a "super chip" that will form the core of Nvidia's Drive PX system, as reported by Digital Trends. Reportedly capable of performing up to 20 trillion operations per second while using up a mere 20 watts of power, the Xavier chip will be the powerhouse that will enable AI capabilities for the Drive PX system, according to claims by Nvidia.

Nvidia founder Jen-Hsun Huang has made a confident pronouncement of the partnership. "Self-driving cars is a challenge that can finally be solved with recent breakthroughs in deep learning and artificial intelligence," CEO Huang said in a statement on Wednesday. "Using our DRIVE PX AI car computer, Bosch will build automotive-grade systems for the mass production of autonomous cars. Together we will realize a future where autonomous vehicles make mobility safe and accessible to all," he affirmed.