Chinese automotive company NIO shows new AI chip for cars | Festina Lente - Your leading source of AI news | Turtles AI

Chinese automotive company NIO shows new AI chip for cars
Isabella V28 July 2024

 


 NIO launches first 5nm automotive AI chip: here’s the Shenji NX9031

 Key Points

- Technological innovation: NIO introduces the Shenji NX9031, the first 5-nm automotive AI chip.
- High performance: With more than 50 billion transistors and a 32-core architecture, it promises superior capabilities for autonomous driving.
- Memory and speed: It supports LPDDR5x memory for speeds up to 8,533 MT/s.
- Competitive potential: It stands as a competitor to NVIDIA’s DRIVE Orin SoC.

 NIO unveils Shenji NX9031 automotive AI chip: world’s first at 5nm

Chinese automotive company NIO recently unveiled its new AI chip for autonomous driving, the Shenji NX9031. This chip, the first in the automotive industry to be developed with 5nm technology, represents a significant breakthrough in AI capabilities for intelligent vehicles.

The Shenji NX9031 features more than 50 billion transistors, a 32-core architecture with Big.Little configuration, and supports LPDDR5x memory, offering data transfer rates of up to 8,533 MT/s. These technical specifications place NIO’s chip among the most advanced solutions currently available, with potential to compete with flagship products such as NVIDIA’s DRIVE Orin SoC.

 Advanced Technical Features

The Shenji NX9031 chip is designed to meet the growing needs of the smart car market. Among its most impressive features are a pixel processing capacity of 6.5 G/s and a response time of less than 5 ms. These parameters demonstrate the chip’s suitability for autonomous driving applications, where speed and processing efficiency are crucial.

In terms of architecture, the chip offers a 6.5-fold improvement in processing operations, a 4-fold increase in LiDAR performance, and a 4.3-fold improvement in Bird’s Eye View (BEV) capabilities. These improvements indicate a significant enhancement over current technologies on the market.

Production and Future Prospects

NIO announced that the Shenji NX9031 chip has passed the "tape-out" stage, a milestone indicating the start of the production phase. Although the company has not specified exactly when mass production will begin, the advancement to this stage suggests that market launch may not be far off.

Local media enthusiastically welcomed the announcement, calling the chip’s development a breakthrough for the automotive industry. The presentation event included hands-on demonstrations that highlighted the chip’s capabilities to significantly improve image quality in low-light conditions, surpassing the performance of automotive chips currently in use.

 Conclusion

With the launch of the Shenji NX9031, NIO once again demonstrates its commitment to technological innovation and performance improvement in smart vehicles. This chip could be a turning point in the field of autonomous driving, opening up new opportunities for the integration of advanced artificial intelligence in future vehicles.