Nvidia Corp wants to get into self-driving cars.
The chipmaker, looking to expand its reach in the automotive market, introduced a new computer for vehicles that includes artificial intelligence features to make them more autonomous.
Nvidia CEO Huang Jen-hsun (黃仁勳) introduced the Nvidia Drive PX 2: a set of processors featuring deep-learning capabilities and software that enables cars to better recognize objects around them, know where they are and plan what actions to take.
Photo: Bloomberg
He unveiled the new technology in a presentation late on Monday at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Volvo Car Corp plans to use the new products in its public trials of autonomous vehicles scheduled for 2017, Nvidia added.
Nvidia is trying to expand the use of graphics chips into markets outside of personal computers, a business that is projected to decline for a fifth straight year this year. Still, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker has managed to expand sales by persuading automakers, server companies and gamers to use its chips.
The new product is aimed at making Nvidia the center of efforts to make cars capable of piloting themselves regardless of whether their occupants can drive or not, Huang said.
If those efforts are successful, particularly in complex urban environments, the impact could be far-reaching, he said.
“Self-driving cars are hard. It turns out driving is hard,” Huang said. “Humans are the least reliable part of the car.”
The new product is to carry the same computing power as 150 Apple Inc MacBook Pros and require water cooling, the CEO said.
That is the kind of horsepower required to make a car perceive its surroundings, he said.
Nvidia’s focus on cars is part of a broader trend in semiconductors. As automakers increasingly try to differentiate their products based on new electronic functions and move toward autonomous vehicles, they need more chips and technical expertise from Nvidia and other technology providers.
Huang has argued that graphics chips are a natural fit for the image-recognition computing needed for self-driving cars to navigate traffic without human help.
The chipmaker, whose shares climbed 64 percent last year, has already won orders for chips used to power infotainment systems in high-end vehicles from firms such as Automobili Lamborghini SpA and Tesla Motors Inc.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS