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Nvidia unveils palm-sized single SoC version of the DRIVE PX2

by Mark Tyson on 13 September 2016, 10:01

Tags: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

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Back at the CES in January we saw Nvidia launch its first 'in-car supercomputer', the DRIVE PX2. Partners such as Audi, BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo lined up were already lined up to use the roadworthy AI system. At the same time we learnt about the supporting Nvidia DriveWorks software and DRIVENET deep neural net technologies.

Now Nvidia has unveiled a new DRIVE PX 2 for auto makers, pictured above. The new in-car computer is palm-sized and energy efficient but offers enough processing power for automated and autonomous vehicles to use for driving and mapping. Consuming just 10 watts, the new single processor DRIVE PX 2 is targeted at providing AutoCruise functions, "which include highway automated driving and HD mapping".

Nvidia revealed that the new DRIVE PX 2 will be the AI engine of the Baidu self-driving car. Vice president and general manager of Automotive at Nvidia, Rob Csongor, said that "Bringing an AI computer to the car in a small, efficient form factor is the goal of many automakers". He added that the DRIVE PX 2 "solves this challenge for our OEM and tier 1 partners, and complements our data center solution for mapping and training".

The introduction of the new DRIVE PX 2 demonstrates the platform's scalability and it is now available from a single mobile processor configuration (as above), to a combination of two mobile processors and two discrete GPUs, to multiple DRIVE PX 2s. The single processor version is suitable for AutoCruise for the highway, and you can scale up to enable greater automation such as "AutoChauffeur for point to point travel," all the way to a fully autonomous vehicle.

Nvidia says that while the single processor DRIVE PX 2 relies on just one Parker system-on-chip (SoC) it can process inputs from multiple cameras, plus lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors. This new DRIVE PX 2 option will start to become available to partners in Q4 this year.

Tesla P4, P40 Accelerators Deliver 45x Faster AI

In other news out of GTC China today, Nvidia has unveiled its new Tesla P4 and P40 GPU accelerators, and new software, to accelerate AI. It is explained that "the Tesla P4 and P40 are specifically designed for inferencing, which uses trained deep neural networks to recognize speech, images or text in response to queries from users and devices".

The new Pascal-based Tesla P4 and P40 accelerators have been built featuring special inferencing instructions to accelerate such operations up to 45x compared to CPUs, and up to 4x over GPU solutions that are just a year old.

The Tesla P4, available from November, is a high efficiency part which can consume as little as 50W, "helping make it 40x more energy efficient than CPUs for inferencing in production workloads". Meanwhile the Tesla P40, available from October, delivers maximum throughput for deep learning workloads, delivering up to 47 tera-operations per second (TOPS).

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Posted by DanceswithUnix - Tue 13 Sep 2016 11:00
So currently there are 75M cars sold worldwide annually, which isn't what I would call a massive market for the semiconductor industry to start with. Samsung on their own ship more phones than that per quarter.

The thing is, self driving cars will create autonomous taxis which would for many people take owning a car from a necessity to a luxury, and lots of people won't bother. The car market is currently growing really slowly, so it wouldn't take much to turn it into a shrinking market, and that is what it is surely going to become. I can see a market for maybe 10M intelligent cars per year. Cheap cars may die out from pricing pressure from autonomous taxis before the technology filters down to the lower levels, leaving just taxis and luxury cars.

I look forward to letting my car drive me long distances, and I wish Nvidia well in getting a slice of that market.
Posted by cheesemp - Tue 13 Sep 2016 11:12
DanceswithUnix
So currently there are 75M cars sold worldwide annually, which isn't what I would call a massive market for the semiconductor industry to start with. Samsung on their own ship more phones than that per quarter.

The thing is, self driving cars will create autonomous taxis which would for many people take owning a car from a necessity to a luxury, and lots of people won't bother. The car market is currently growing really slowly, so it wouldn't take much to turn it into a shrinking market, and that is what it is surely going to become. I can see a market for maybe 10M intelligent cars per year. Cheap cars may die out from pricing pressure from autonomous taxis before the technology filters down to the lower levels, leaving just taxis and luxury cars.

I look forward to letting my car drive me long distances, and I wish Nvidia well in getting a slice of that market.

While in a looking 100 year into the future type perspective I think you are right for now this is a pipe dream. From someone living in a small town that doesn't even support a train service or a bus more than once an hour how is going to support a fleet of automated taxis any time soon without a massive culture shift (We barely have any regular taxis!). I can see something like this taking off more rapidly in London and similar large cities sooner but its not going to happen elsewhere for a long while yet!
Posted by DanceswithUnix - Tue 13 Sep 2016 11:49
cheesemp
While in a looking 100 year into the future type perspective I think you are right for now this is a pipe dream. From someone living in a small town that doesn't even support a train service or a bus more than once an hour how is going to support a fleet of automated taxis any time soon without a massive culture shift (We barely have any regular taxis!). I can see something like this taking off more rapidly in London and similar large cities sooner but its not going to happen elsewhere for a long while yet!

Tesla are talking about making their cars pay for themselves with something like this…

You buy your Tesla, you enable it to work as a taxi when you aren't using it.
Someone wants to make a trip, they get their phone out and put in the journey details. Your car works out if it can do the trip within it's allowed taxi hours, and if it can it drives itself to the pickup, does the run, drives itself home.

So it isn't about a fleet of taxis, it is down to whether one of your neighbours wants to lower their motoring costs.
Posted by Jowsey - Tue 13 Sep 2016 12:58
DanceswithUnix
So it isn't about a fleet of taxis, it is down to whether one of your neighbours wants to lower their motoring costs.

Kind of a tangent but this would bring up an interesting tax consideration!
Posted by DanceswithUnix - Tue 13 Sep 2016 16:40
Jowsey
Kind of a tangent but this would bring up an interesting tax consideration!

Interesting point! Given how many people get their cars on some sort of lease agreement, it could perhaps be built into the lease. If the lease company get the money, then it would be lower lease payments rather than income. Kind of like “saving” in an offset mortgage.

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