Nvidia's self-driving processors ready for prime time

January 08, 2018 12:00 AM

LAS VEGAS -- Nvidia's latest processor, Xavier, is ready to hit the road.

At a press conference at CES on Sunday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the chipmaker's first autonomous machine processors are ready for sampling within the next three months. The development marks the transition of massive processing capability from research to production vehicles, and will enable Nvidia to diversify its software offerings within the car.

Nvidia introduced the Xavier processor in September 2016, announcing that with the capability of processing 30 tera-operations per second, the hardware would serve as the "supercomputer" for autonomous driving. Since then, the chipmaker has grown its number of automotive partners to more than 320, and introduced Pegasus, its Level 5 self-driving platform -- which needs no human supervision, powered by two Xavier processors.

"This was the largest engineering effort for any single project at Nvidia," said Danny Shapiro, the company's head of automotive, on a call with reporters last week. "We had 2,000 engineers working on it and an investment of $2 billion in research and development."

Huang also announced two platforms, in addition to its autonomous driving suite, that will run on Xavier: an artificial intelligence assistance and augmented reality.

Nvidia's smart assistant, Drive IX, will use sensors inside and outside the car to detect and respond to passenger needs. For instance, if a driver approaches the car with an armful of groceries, Drive IX will open the trunk door, or if a driver becomes distracted, the assistant will alert them to refocus their attention.

Shapiro says Drive IX operates independently from virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa or Microsoft Cortana, that require cloud connectivity to perform most functions, since it operates within the vehicle. However, he added, Drive IX could complement such technologies in aiding the driver.

"They're mutually exclusive but can be very compatible," Shapiro said.

Volkswagen has agreed to use the platform in its upcoming I.D. Buzz microbus, slated for delivery in 2022.

Xavier will also be able to run Drive AR, an augmented reality platform that can enhance graphics for points of interest, navigation and other alerts.

Uber partnership

Huang also announced that Nvidia has been working with Uber on its autonomous vehicle prototypes since the ride-hailing company began testing its fleet of Volvo XC90 SUVs and self-driving freight trucks.

A spokeswoman for Uber said the company is using the chipmaker's GPUs, but has not committed to the Pegasus platform.

Uber said it has significantly increased its autonomous testing on public roads since its pilot in Pittsburgh began in September 2016. The tech company has clocked 50,000 autonomous trips with passengers, and 2 million miles of testing -- with the last million miles driven in the past 100 days.

Nvidia is also partnering with Aurora, the self-driving startup headed by former Google executive Chris Urmson, and with Baidu and ZF on autonomous cars in China.