NVIDIA Reveals Xavier Chipset For Self-Driving Cars

Last year, tech giant Nvidia announced the Xavier System on Chip; the most powerful SoC to date. At this year’s CES, Nvidia announced a partnership with Volkswagen and Aurora in a bid to develop intelligent, self-driving cars.

Self-driving Automobiles Powered by Nvidia DRIVE Xavier

CEO Jensen Huang describes the Xavier as “the most complex system on a chip, or SoC, ever made.” The Xavier took over 8,000 engineering years to craft, has 9,000 transistors, and cost $2 billion in R&D. The chipset boasts eight core CPUs, as well as a Volta GPU with 512 CUDA cores and 20 tensor cores. All this tech delivers 30 teraflops of performance at 30 watts. In contrast, the previous generation’s Drive PX2 delivered 24 teraflops at 300 watts. According to Huang, the Xavier will see sampling in quarter 1 of 2018.

World’s most powerful SoC, NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier, brings new #AI capabilities: https://t.co/7fL4sjehxr #CES2018 pic.twitter.com/BOKy4k2E6f

— NVIDIA (@nvidia) January 8, 2018

The Xavier is designed as a platform to support advanced AI capable of powering and driving automobiles. As proof of concept, Huang displayed a sped-up video of an eight mile drive wherein the driver never touched the steering wheel. The drive included 23 intersection crossings, eight turns, and 2 stop signs.

Car Companies Partner with Nvidia for Future Lineups

Huang’s presentation included an augmented reality demo featuring a La Ferrari virtual test drive. Huang mentioned that while this is impressive, it is unlikely to allow the masses to access to their brand new AI. He then announced partnerships with Volkswagen in which the latter would have AI infused into future vehicles. According to Dr. Herbert Diess of Volkswagen, this will not mean robotic taxi services will replace private cars, since drivers who prefer their own environment will likely opt to drive their own vehicles.

Check out how we transform an older @Volkswagen model into the new I.D. Buzz in NVIDIA Holodeck. https://t.co/0PMIUorbTA #CES2018 #VR pic.twitter.com/aVbc2p8BPY

— NVIDIA (@nvidia) January 8, 2018

Huang also revealed several other companies that have selected Nvidia as a partner in driverless vehicles, including Uber, ZF Friedrichshafen, and Baidu. Huang said he aims to meet the highest levels of safety requirements in line with ISO 26262. He announced partnerships with Blackberry QNX and TTTech, integrating these companies’ software with their own. Hyundai and industry newcomer Aurora have also partnered with Nvidia.