Nvidia Teams up with Bosch to Build AI supercomputer for Self-driving Cars

Bosch used the Bosch Connected World event in Berlin, Germany to announce that it would be teaming up with Nvidia to design an onboard computer for vehicles. This onboard computer would be capable of running the AI needed for self-driving.

The new device would be based on Nvidia’s Drive PX technology, which incidentally is also used in semi-autonomous Teslas. Bosch will also be incorporating Nvidia’s forthcoming “Xavier” AI system-on-chip. According to Nvidia, the Xavier system is highly powerful and has the capability for 20 trillion operations per second while using up only 20 watts of power. This means that the Bosch car computer would be smaller and cheaper than Nvidia’s current Drive PX 2 unit.

Speaking about the technical collaboration, Bosch CEO Dr. Volkmar Denner said in a statement that the company wants to facilitate automated driving in every situation. He expects driverless cars to be a part of daily life as early as the next decade, he added that Bosch also wants to take on a leading role in the field of artificial intelligence.

“Self-driving cars is a challenge that can finally be solved with recent breakthroughs in deep learning and artificial intelligence,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia’s founder and CEO. “Using DRIVE PX AI car computer, Bosch will build automotive-grade systems for the mass production of autonomous cars.”

Bosch revealed that it expects production of cars powered by this collaboration to begin in the next decade.