NVIDIA DRIVE AGX is giving automotive industry startups an AI-powered boost.
During GTC Digital, electric and autonomous vehicle startups Pony.ai, Canoo and Faraday Future announced they are developing vehicles using the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX compute platform. The high-performance, energy-efficient platform enables automated and autonomous driving across all levels for robust, software-defined vehicle development.
These companies are joining a wide, international ecosystem of automakers, tier 1 suppliers, truck makers, sensor suppliers, robotaxi companies and software startups developing on NVIDIA DRIVE.
By selecting an open and scalable platform, the DRIVE ecosystem is developing autonomous vehicles that are always improving, with over-the-air update capabilities, for a safer, more efficient transportation future.
Redefining Mobility and Delivery
By augmenting the human driver with AI, autonomous driving technology promises to significantly improve everyday mobility and logistics.
Pony.ai, an autonomous driving technology company, is developing its upcoming robotaxi fleet on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Pegasus. The company has been operating autonomous ride-hailing test vehicles since 2018, in California and China.
In April, Pony.ai began providing autonomous delivery services in Irvine, Calif., to help those in the area sheltering in place due to COVID-19.
The startup said it will leverage the DRIVE AGX Pegasus self-driving platform to meet the massive computing demands required to bring robotaxis to market. The AI compute platform achieves 320 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of deep learning and integrates two NVIDIA Xavier processors and two NVIDIA Turing Tensor Core GPUs.
With the ability to process a range of redundant and diverse deep neural networks simultaneously, Pony.ai can focus on developing safe and sustainable mobility technology for passenger travel and delivery.
A New Vision for Personal Vehicles
Electric vehicle startup Canoo has unveiled a sleek EV resembling a futuristic take on the iconic Volkswagen Microbus. The vehicles, purpose-built for a shared mobility system, will go into production in late 2021.
Canoo’s vehicles will feature AI-assisted driving features powered by NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Xavier. The compute platform delivers 30 TOPS of performance for object detection and sensor fusion, running state-of-the-art algorithms to provide cross-traffic alerts, blind spot detection and pedestrian detection, as well as convenience features such as adaptive cruise control and lane-centering control.
The software-defined DRIVE AGX Xavier also allows for more advanced features, like auto lane change, traffic light recognition and evasive steering, to be introduced when they become available.
Luxury EV maker Faraday Future also announced this week it will develop its upcoming FF91 vehicle using DRIVE AGX Xavier. With high-performance, energy-efficient compute at its core, the FF91 incorporates more than 36 sensors for advanced autonomous driving capabilities. The flagship EV is expected to begin deliveries by the end of this year.
By developing on the scalable DRIVE AGX platform, these startups, as well as the entire DRIVE ecosystem, can continue to build more advanced features and continuously deliver truly intelligent transportation.