Several automotive industry and technology leaders have joined together to accelerate the deployment of safer, more affordable and scalable self-driving vehicle technologies through the Autonomous Vehicle Computing Consortium.
Arm, Bosch, Continental, Denso Corp., General Motors, Nvidia, NXP Semiconductors and Toyota Motor Corp. are all initial members of the consortium, according to a statement from the group.
Its first step will be to develop a set of recommendations for a system architecture and a computing platform for autonomous vehicles. The goal is to reconcile performance requirements of self-driving systems with vehicle-specific requirements and limitations such as size, temperature range, power consumption and safety.
These recommendations will help promote deployment of automated and autonomous vehicles at scale.
"The AVCC brings together leaders from across the automotive industry landscape to tackle complex foundational technological and computing challenges," Dipti Vachani, Arm senior vice president and general manager of the company's automotive and Internet of Things units, said in a statement.
Each company brings different expertise to the self-driving space.
German automotive supplier Bosch noted in a statement that it will develop recommendations for software interfaces for autonomous systems, for example, while tech company Nvidia will contribute its work in artificial intelligence computing platforms.
The consortium will be an independent group funded by membership fees from the companies that join. Arm officials said its work will be open to nonmembers.
GM has invested heavily in autonomous vehicle development, especially through its Cruise unit. Toyota has also started to form alliances for self-driving vehicle testing, such as with Pony.ai.
Partnerships such as the consortium have proved advantageous to most automakers, suppliers and tech companies in developing self-driving technology.
GM and Toyota, along with Ford Motor Co., SAE International, Uber ATG and Daimler AG, also are a part of the Automated Vehicle Safety Consortium, which works to provide a safety framework around Level 4 and Level 5 automated vehicle testing.
Reuters contributed to this report.
