Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Google’s self-driving car project are in advanced talks to form a technical partnership. The talks were confirmed on Thursday by a person familiar with the discussions.
The partnership would be the first to match an automaker with Google’s seven-year-old autonomous car project, which is now part of the so-called X lab at Alphabet Inc, Google’s parent company.
Details have not been revealed, but Google has repeatedly said it does not intend to manufacture self-driving cars and would prefer to license its technology to carmakers.
Photo: AP
Google has been testing versions of self-driving cars on highways since 2009 and on city streets since 2014. It has a fleet of Lexus SUVs specially outfitted with autonomous software, as well as a pod-like prototype vehicle it designed.
“We want to partner to bring self-driving to all the vehicles in the world,” Google cofounder and Alphabet president Sergey Brin told media at a self-driving car event last spring.
Last fall, Google hired John Krafcik, an auto industry veteran and former executive at Ford Motor Co and Hyundai Motor Co, to be the chief executive of its self-driving car project.
Fiat Chrysler — which has lagged bigger, richer rivals like Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co (GM) in the development of self-driving cars — might welcome the chance to test Google’s technology.
The Italian-American automaker also has manufacturing expertise and factories that Google lacks.
Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne has been vocal about seeking a partner to share the cost of research and development. However, other automakers, including GM, have so far rebuffed him. A tie-up with Google would help his company leapfrog competitors in the race to develop self-driving cars.
Google has set a goal of having self-driving cars in the public’s hands by 2020.
In related news, Chinese search engine giant Baidu Inc (百度) is planning to produce driverless cars by 2020, chief executive Robin Li (李彥宏) said on Thursday.
“We believe that the automobile is the next major computing platform,” Li told analysts during a conference call. “We’re on track now to deploy autonomous vehicles powered by Baidu technology in 2018 with production at scale by 2020.”
Baidu reported that first-quarter revenue reached US$2.45 billion, up 31.2 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to a statement released on Thursday. However, net profit slid 18.9 percent year-on-year to US$308.1 million for the quarter, the statement said.
The company expects revenue in the second quarter to range from US$3.12 billion to US$3.19 billion in what could be an increase of more than 28 percent from the previous year.
Additional reporting by AFP
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to