Nvidia CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, recently announced a new partnership with Baidu which will see them partner and work together on incorporating artificial intelligence onto the cloud to car autonomous vehicle platform. Mr Huang announced the partnership at the Baidu World Conference which is taking place at the moment in Beijing.
The plan for the two companies is to put the Baidu cloud platform and its mapping technology to good use and couple it with the self driving platform of Nvidia. The two firms will put their heads together and work towards making solutions for the high-definition maps, automated parking and also the Level 3 autonomous vehicle control.
Huang said that they would bring together their expertise and build the AI car from end to end, from top to bottom and from the cloud to the car. He also said they were looking at options to solve the challenges that people face when it comes to AI, some of which are intelligent machines.
At the conference, the two companies made a demonstration of the Drive PX 2, which is considered to be the first artificial intelligence system supercomputer development platform. The two firms are also aiming at developing the autonomous technology for both Chinese and global based car makers.
The move is seen as vital for Baidu as it aims to branch out of China and venture into the world. A principal analyst at the Enderle Group, Rob Enderle said that Baidu’s domination of China was the same as that of Google and the world, and the Chinese based firm might be looking at extending that reach to the world. Nvidia is also a company that is in transition marked by its recent move to invest and focus on four main markets which are; gaming, visualization, data centers, and automotive. Therefore the move is essential as they make a move in its automotive industry.
However, Enderle also expects Nvidia to face some challenges in the automotive industry that many of the third party players such as Google and Apple have all been facing. Most firms in the auto industry tend to want to develop most of their features and functions in-house. Another challenge the two firms might face is the time factor.
Companies such as Google have been developing self autonomous cars for years and they still haven’t put a car on the road for long haul trips, therefore putting the technology to test would be a hurdle for the partnership. However many analysts believe that if companies do eventually cross that finish line and get their product to the masses, the rewards to be reaped are high.
