LAS VEGAS — As manufacturers begin the gritty development work to bring autonomous vehicle concepts to market, two paths are emerging to process the vast amounts of artificial intelligence needed to take the human out of the driver's seat.
In press conferences that took place one night apart, chipmakers Nvidia and Intel outlined their platforms to power automated driving. Nvidia's approach was holistic, processing as much information as efficiently as possible, while Intel was more conservative, limiting the situations in which to use processing power. While the industry is still years away from determining a best practice for such functions, experts say this technology is necessary to move forward, and could define long-term supplier agreements.
"AI is, in my opinion, a must-have when targeting advanced levels of autonomy," said Luca De Ambroggi, an analyst at IHS Markit. "It is not just appealing; performance requirements cannot be achieved just with traditional hand-coded algorithms."
Artificial intelligence lets vehicles learn from experience and make decisions on its own. The development of the technology has fast-forwarded autonomous vehicle development. However, extensive algorithms require significantly more computing power than current vehicles can handle.
Ultimately, the company that can achieve the safest yet most cost-efficient strategy will win customer contracts.