Smart-driving chips: the weapon of choice in China’s EV tech war

Chinese electric-vehicle makers are designing their own smart-driving chips to reduce reliance on Nvidia and Horizon Robotics. Li Auto unveiled the Mach M100 5nm AI chip with 1,280 TOPS, while BYD debuted the Xuanji A3 4nm chip supporting Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous driving.

Advertisement Smart-driving chips: the weapon of choice in China’s EV tech war Carmakers strive for more control over computing hardware to reduce reliance on Nvidia and Horizon Robotics 2-MIN READ2-MIN Listen Howard Liu /author/howard-liu in Beijing A new front has opened in China’s electric-vehicle tech war as carmakers design their own smart-driving chips, turning custom silicon into the industry’s weapon of choice in the world’s largest auto market. The latest salvo came on Monday after Li Auto unveiled the Mach M100, a 5-nanometre artificial-intelligence chip tailored for autonomous driving. Designed for the carmaker’s new L9 Livis SUV model, the chip displayed single-unit computing power of 1,280 trillion operations per second TOPS – a metric of how fast an AI brain can process incoming data, Li Auto https://sc.mp/tji7t?utm source=copy-link&utm campaign=3353963&utm medium=share widget said. It achieved a highly efficient 82 per cent utilisation rate, the firm added.Advertisement The announcement followed a string of breakthroughs by its rivals. Weeks earlier, world-leading EV maker BYD https://sc.mp/kq173?utm source=copy-link&utm campaign=3356760&utm medium=share widget debuted its Xuanji A3, a 4nm smart-driving chip now in mass production. Capable of supporting Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous-driving functions, a trio of Xuanji A3 chips working in tandem can deliver more than 2,100 TOPS of processing power, the company said.Advertisement Higher TOPS allow a vehicle’s computers to make split-second driving decisions by simultaneously crunching feeds from various sources such as radar and lidar sensors. Advertisement Select Voice Select Speed 1.00x