Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it is deepening its partnership with Nvidia Corp by developing next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) platforms and “AI factories” for electric and autonomous vehicles together.
The concepts they are developing could also be applied to industries such as smart manufacturing and robotics, the companies said.
The latest move, announced at the annual Hon Hai Tech Day in Taipei, would help the company realize its electric vehicle (EV) ambitions with a range of solutions using Nvidia’s Drive platform.
Photo: AFP
The companies said that their collaboration on creating “AI factories” would be based on an Nvidia computing infrastructure specially built for processing, refining and transforming vast amounts of data into valuable AI models and tokens.
“Most importantly, Nvidia and Hon Hai are building these factories together. We will be helping the whole industry move much faster into the new AI era,” Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said.
“A new type of manufacturing has emerged — the production of intelligence, and the data centers that produce it are AI factories,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. “Hon Hai, the world’s largest manufacturer, has the expertise and scale to build AI factories globally. We are delighted to expand our decade-long partnership with Hon Hai to accelerate the AI industrial revolution.”
Huang said that an AI factory that processes data into intelligence would improve EV software and upgrade entire fleets of vehicles to work more intelligently.
During a question-and-answer session, Young said that Hon Hai would be well-prepared to accept orders from Chinese EV brands once Beijing lifts restrictions that prevent companies from providing vehicle design and manufacturing services on a contract basis.
Hon Hai seeks to expand its global footprint by teaming up with local partners.
“China will relax the outsourcing restrictions sooner or later,” Young said, adding that competition is fierce in China, where about 200 automakers are vying for a piece of the market.
Against that backdrop, Chinese automakers are under heavy pressure and might farm out orders to safeguard their market positions, he said.
In Taiwan, Hon Hai plans to build up capacity to produce 50,000 to 100,000 EVs annually, as it seeks to secure a 10 percent market share with sales of about 400,000 to 450,000 units a year, it said.
The company is in talks with 14 potential customers and has worked on 23 development projects, chief EV strategy officer Jun Seki said.
India and Japan have the potential to become new top EV markets after China, he said.
Hon Hai yesterday unveiled the Model N logistics EV and the mass-production version of its Model B crossover sports utility vehicle (SUV), which it said has been well-received by customers.
The electric Model C SUV would enter volume production next year, as its first customer, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷), is slated to deliver its N7 model in the first quarter of next year, it said.
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