Despite boycotts: Nvidia expands China partnerships

Advanced car chips Despite boycotts: Nvidia expands China partnerships

2024-04-02 From Michael Eckstein | Translated by AI 2 min Reading Time

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Chip manufacturer Nvidia is becoming increasingly popular with Chinese car manufacturers. BYD and other electric car manufacturers in the People's Republic will rely on "Drive Thor", the latest car chip from the US manufacturer.

Nvidia's Drive Thor system is in high demand - also in China.(Image: Nvidia) — Nvidia's Drive Thor system is in high demand - also in China.
(Image: Nvidia)

BYD, which only recently overtook Tesla and became the world's largest manufacturer of electric cars, will already next year use Nvidia's System on a Chip (SoC) Thor for autonomous driving and ADAS driving assistance of its vehicles, said Danny Shapiro, the vice president for car chips at Nvidia in a video conference with analysts.

The Chinese electric car brands Xpeng and Hyper, a new premium offshoot of GAC Aion, were also won over by Nvidia as new customers, after NIO and Geely had already announced their cooperation with the US chip manufacturer months ago.

How good the autonomous driving functions in electric cars are is becoming more and more a decisive competitive factor in the current phase of electric mobility. Due to its powerful chipsets for AI applications, Nvidia is currently considered a preferred partner not only by Chinese car manufacturers, but also by brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, or Land Rover.

"Every car manufacturer who uses any kind of artificial intelligence - and recently generative AI - adopts Nvidia's systems," Shapiro is quoted by the Japanese business newspaper Nikkei Asia. It was also already known that Zeekr, an electric car brand of the Geely group, and Li Auto will rely on Drive Thor.

Compensation for losses in the business with AI chips for data centers

These new businesses in China's auto industry are an important replacement for Nvidia for the losses it suffers due to the China-related trade restrictions of the U.S. government. The company is no longer allowed to sell its most powerful AI chips for data centers to China. Washington argues that they make the Chinese military too dangerous.

The Drive Thor chipset, developed specifically with "Large Language Models" (LLM) for autonomous driving functions in mind, is the successor to Drive Orion. The first electric cars with Drive Thor are expected to hit the market in 2025. According to media reports, they will enable autonomous driving up to level 4.

Not only does Drive Thor have a much higher computing power than its predecessor chip from Nvidia, but it also allows manufacturers to consolidate many functions previously scattered throughout their vehicles on a single SoC, saving costs and weight and thus ideally enabling greater ranges of electric cars.

Among other things, car manufacturers can save many meters of electric cables when using Drive Thor, which currently link SoC-based units distributed in the car. This simplifies and reduces both purchasing and assembly.

Not only auto chips, but also training processors are in demand

In addition to this, BYD will not only use the latest automotive chips from Nvidia, but will also utilise the US manufacturer's cloud services and training technologies for its AI developers.

Among other things, BYD will collaborate with Nvidia to modernize the automation in its car factories and its supply chains, as reported by Reuters from the developer conference GTC in San Jose, California.

The partnership with BYD will be extended to "entire workflows" beyond car production, announced Danny Shapiro. Nvidia platforms will control the use of intelligent robots in BYD's car plants. And Nvidia's "Omniverse" 3D graphics platform will in future "improve the car buyer's shopping experience" at BYD, Nikkei Asia reports. (me)

With the Blackwell AI chip, Nvidia aims to usher in the next generation of artificial intelligence. (Image:Nvidia)

Generative artificial intelligence can become a game-changer in the automotive industry. However, the human factor must not be neglected. (Image:freely licensed from Pixabay)

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