Chipmaker Nvidia Launches New System for Autonomous Driving

The logo of Nvidia Corporation is seen during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan May 30, 2017. (Reuters)
The logo of Nvidia Corporation is seen during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan May 30, 2017. (Reuters)
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Chipmaker Nvidia Launches New System for Autonomous Driving

The logo of Nvidia Corporation is seen during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan May 30, 2017. (Reuters)
The logo of Nvidia Corporation is seen during the annual Computex computer exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan May 30, 2017. (Reuters)

Chip giant Nvidia Corp on Tuesday unveiled its new computing platform called DRIVE Thor that would centralize autonomous and assisted driving as well as other digital functions including in-car entertainment.

Nvidia, a big player in the gaming chip and artificial intelligence (AI) market, has been making a big push in the automotive business, a key growth segment for the company.

Danny Shapiro, head of Nvidia's automotive business, said DRIVE Thor would be able to replace numerous chips and cables in the car and bring down the overall system cost, although he did not give specific numbers on savings.

"You can imagine a tremendous savings in terms of cost, in terms of reduced cabling, in terms of reduced weight, in terms of reduced energy consumption overall," Shapiro said during a briefing session.

Some automakers have begun work on designing their own chips to gain more control and cut costs.

General Motor's autonomous driving unit Cruise last week said it had developed its own chips to be deployed by 2025. It currently uses Nvidia chips.

The first customer Nvidia announced for DRIVE Thor is China's Geely-owned ZEEKR.

Shapiro said its current computer system called DRIVE Orin will be used in Chinese car company XPeng's new smart SUV and Chinese autonomous driving startup QCraft.

But this comes amid worries about whether Chinese customers would be able to continue to access Nvidia technology with a recent US ban on exports of two top Nvidia computing chips for data centers to China.

"There's a lot of companies doing great work, doing things that will benefit mankind and we want to support them," Shapiro said.

"In the cases where we do have product for the data center that has some export restrictions, we're working with those Chinese customers to come up with a suitable alternative product," he added.



Huawei Shows off AI Computing System to Rival Nvidia’s Top Product

An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
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Huawei Shows off AI Computing System to Rival Nvidia’s Top Product

An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)
An AI (Artificial Intelligence) sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China July 6, 2023. (Reuters)

China's Huawei Technologies showed off an AI computing system on Saturday that one industry expert has said rivals Nvidia's most advanced offering, as the Chinese technology giant seeks to capture market share in the country's growing artificial intelligence sector.

The CloudMatrix 384 system made its first public debut at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), a three-day event in Shanghai where companies showcase their latest AI innovations, drawing a large crowd to the company's booth.

The system has drawn close attention from the global AI community since Huawei first announced it in April. Industry analysts view it as a direct competitor to Nvidia's GB200 NVL72, the US chipmaker's most advanced system-level product currently available in the market.

Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor research group SemiAnalysis, said in an April article that Huawei now had AI system capabilities that could beat Nvidia.

Huawei staff at its WAIC booth declined to comment when asked to introduce the CloudMatrix 384 system. A spokesperson for Huawei did not respond to questions.

Huawei has become widely regarded as China's most promising domestic supplier of chips essential for AI development, even though the company faces US export restrictions.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg in May that Huawei had been "moving quite fast" and named the CloudMatrix as an example.

The CloudMatrix 384 incorporates 384 of Huawei's latest 910C chips and outperforms Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 on some metrics, which uses 72 B200 chips, according to SemiAnalysis.

The performance stems from Huawei's system design capabilities, which compensate for weaker individual chip performance through the use of more chips and system-level innovations, SemiAnalysis said.

Huawei says the system uses "supernode" architecture that allows the chips to interconnect at super-high speeds and in June, Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Pingan said the CloudMatrix 384 system was operational on Huawei's cloud platform.