Tesla teams up with AMD to develop its own AI car chip

Electric carmaker Tesla is working with Advanced Micro Devices Inc to develop its own artificial intelligence chip for self-driving cars, CNBC reported on Wednesday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

AMD spin-off GlobalFoundries Inc Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said his company is working directly with Tesla, according to the CNBC report.

GlobalFoundries, which fabricates chips, has a wafer supply agreement in place with AMD.

Electric carmaker Tesla Inc is working with AMD to develop its own artificial intelligence chip for self-driving cars, CNBC reported on Wednesday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

TESLA’S AI GENIUS 

Earlier this year Tesla hired Andrej Karpathy as its new head of AI and Autopilot Vision. 

The scientist, who most recently was a research scientist at Elon Musk’s OpenAI, is being described as ‘one of the world’s leading experts in computer vision and deep learning. 

Andrej completed his computer vision PhD at Stanford University, where he demonstrated the ability to derive complex descriptions of images using a deep neural net. 

For example, this meant his software could identify not simply that there is a cat in a given picture, but that it is an orange, spotted cat, riding on a skateboard with red wheels on brown hardwood flooring . 

 

Tesla isn’t completely going it alone in chip development, according to the source, and will build on top of AMD intellectual property, CNBC reported.

More than 50 people are working on the project under Jim Keller, a longtime chip architect and the head of Autopilot hardware and software of Tesla, according to the report.

AMD shares were up 2.2 percent in extended trading.

Tesla, AMD, and GlobalFoundries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It comes a day after Intel has announced it is teaming up with with Alphabet’s Waymo self-driving unit.

The chipmaker admitted it had worked with the company during the design of its compute platform to allow autonomous cars to process information in real time.

The world’s largest computer chipmaker said its Intel-based technologies for sensor processing, general compute and connectivity were used in the Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans that Waymo has been using since 2015 to test its self-driving system. 

Earlier this year Tesla hired Andrej Karpathy as its new head of AI and Autopilot Vision. 

The scientist, who most recently was a research scientist at Elon Musk’s OpenAI, is being described as ‘one of the world’s leading experts in computer vision and deep learning. 

Andrej completed his computer vision PhD at Stanford University, where he demonstrated the ability to derive complex descriptions of images using a deep neural net. 

For example, this meant his software could identify not simply that there is a cat in a given picture, but that it is an orange, spotted cat, riding on a skateboard with red wheels on brown hardwood flooring . 

MUSK: AI IS A FUNDAMENTAL RISK 

During a question-and-answer session at the summer conference of the National Governors Association in Rhode Island., Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned that regulation of artificial intelligence is needed because it’s a ‘fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation.’

The billionaire said regulations will stop humanity from being outsmarted by computers, or ‘deep intelligence in the network’, that can start wars by manipulating information.

Governments must have a better understanding of artificial intelligence technology’s rapid evolution in order to fully comprehend the risks, he said.

‘Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid, as they should be…By the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’ll be too late,’ he added. 

 

 

 

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