Rivian unveils AI chip for automated driving, ditches Nvidia

Bloomberg Ed Ludlow Rivian Automotive Inc has developed its own artificial intelligence chip replacing Nvidia Corp tool as part of a broader push to add and enhance automated-driving features in future vehicles The automaker will equip its upcoming R sport utility vehicles with Rivian Autonomy Processor chips and a new lidar sensor Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co will produce the chips that combined with the new sensor and AI model developments will bolster Rivian s efforts to eventually offer autonomous driving capability This is not a bet one takes lightly this is a huge commitment that s taken us years Rivian Chief Executive Officer RJ Scaringe commented in an interview Usually you can t lower cost and improve performance But here we improved performance dramatically and simultaneously lowered cost by hundreds of dollars per carriage Related Articles Oracle shares drop the the greater part since on mounting AI spending Microsoft CEO Nadella is making a cricket app in his free time Disney invests billion in OpenAI strikes licensing deal Bay Area gained jobs in September but California suffered job losses Magid Inexpensive gadgets that make life a bit easier Rivian shares were down as of p m in New York paring an earlier decline of as much as Two RAP chips will power Rivian s next-generation on-board computer called Autonomy Compute Module which will process billion pixels per second and deliver four times the performance of the Nvidia-powered system in Rivian s current vehicles The company s SUVs and pickups offer driver-assistance features that require constant supervision Automakers have for years competed to develop more capable automated-driving systems and sold investors on a future where vehicles are eventually able to offer full autonomy However majority of manufacturers have tended to count on specialist chipmakers like Nvidia Mobileye Global Inc or Qualcomm Inc because advancing custom AI silicon is challenging and expensive Nvidia now the world s largest part valuable company dominates the field for chips in material centers used to train AI models Its business offering automotive chips remains small accounting for only about of sales but the company is looking to increase that share Tesla Inc has been an exception to the outsourcing trend designing its own in-car chips and making them standard hardware to help justify the expenditure The Elon Musk-led company has also taken a camera-only approach arguing that it more closely aligns with how humans drive and that added sensors like lidar are too costly Rivian disagrees taking the side of several robotaxi and car companies that emphasize lidar s ability to keep tabs on a automobile s surroundings and back up other sensors Lidar has changed a lot Scaringe mentioned It s no longer a big expense it s a very small percentage of the carriage s bill of materials Rivian s R will enter production in the first half of with deliveries beginning shortly thereafter The initial vehicles won t have the new chip or lidar and will therefore have more limited automated-driving capabilities From Rivian will gradually introduce iterations of system that enable its vehicles to expedition point-to-point without drivers needing to keep their hands on the wheel or eyes on the road Initially that will be limited to highways before extending to other types of roads Rivian s ultimate goal is to sell customers and investors on a higher-margin program business where personal vehicles are capable of operating autonomously without anyone in the driver s seat Rivian went masses in in one of the biggest-ever US listings It was initially hailed as a rival to Tesla after beating major automakers to sphere with full-size electric pickups and SUVs Since then however the company has struggled with the basics its lone assembly plant in Illinois is expected to produce fewer than vehicles this year a fraction of the facility s total threshold With Rivian continuing to burn cash the company has repeatedly cut jobs and its stock is down more than from highs reached shortly after the IPO Even so Volkswagen AG has committed almost billion to a joint venture leveraging Rivian s expertise in application and electronics and the company continues to hire top talent from Tesla Apple Inc and Silicon Valley Hands-Free At the core of Rivian s current vehicles and the upcoming R SUV is a foundation called Large Driving Model Its ability to learn from past and future driving will enable Rivian to upgrade the automated-driving capability of older R vehicles which lack lidar and use Nvidia s Orin chips ahead of the introduction of the more complete R platform expected in The company will start charging for its Autonomy utility platform starting with existing R owners early next year Customers can either pay up front to access new features over the life of the bicycle or a monthly subscription The first iteration of the platform s new capabilities will be modest and well short of what Tesla already offers through what it markets as Full Self-Driving or FSD Rivian will release an expanded version of what it calls Universal Hands Free in the coming weeks to existing owners allowing for hands-free assisted driving across million miles of roads up from roughly miles right now But it can t address or react to a multitude of traffic situations An updated point-to-point version of the application is expected to be ready next year where the bus will be able to tackle make turns and change lanes while still requiring eyes on the road Tesla offers FSD either via a one-time charge or a -a-month subscription The latest generation handles a great number of everyday driving tasks from point-to-point navigation to lane changes without hands on the wheel The system still requires operational supervision and thus is not autonomous While Rivian s own cars are still far from driving themselves Scaringe says he s open to licensing the equipment to other automakers including Volkswagen What we are building is so well architected at a platform level Scaringe commented It s not hard for us to imagine in the next several years that this becomes a platform we also license Updates Rivian shares in fourth paragraph and adds additional details starting in the final paragraph More stories like this are available on bloomberg com Bloomberg L P