Xavier is designed to power the NVIDIA DRIVE software stack which has been expanded to a trio of AI platforms covering every aspect of the experience inside next-generation automobiles.

DRIVE AV — This part of the DRIVE platform was also available in the previous generation and uses neural networks to perform the calculations required for self-driving cars.

DRIVE IX — The first of the two new inclusions is a software development kit which enables AI assistants that can harness data from sensors inside and outside the vehicle.

DRIVE AR — While there have been many advancements around self-driving technologies and AI assistants for cars, augmented reality is still relatively unexplored. With DRIVE AR, Nvidia intends to enable new graphical experiences which can deliver things such as information about points of interest along the route.

The processor has been in development for over four years and represents the work of over 2,000 engineers. Xavier features more than nine billion transistors and Nvidia claims it’s the most complex system-on-a-chip (SoC) ever created.

Autonomous vehicles require data to be captured and processed at very fast rates. To help achieve this, Xavier is built around a custom 8-core CPU. The processor also includes a new 512-core Volta GPU, deep learning accelerator, new computer vision accelerators, and 8K HDR video processors.

These features come together to calculate 30 trillion operations per second while consuming just 30 watts. Nvidia claims this generation of its DRIVE platform is 15 times more energy efficient than its previous.

Nvidia Pegasus is the company’s supercomputer for self-driving cars. It uses two Xavier SoCs in tandem with two next-generation GPUs to deliver 320 trillion operations per second of performance.

Customers are due to receive their first samples of Pegasus in mid-2018.

What are your thoughts on Nvidia’s new Xavier SoC?

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Tesla is a pioneering and forward-looking company and, as our readers know well, AI is the future of just about everything. It would have been a safe bet Tesla intends to be at the forefront.

During a Tesla-hosted party at the NIPS intelligence conference in Long Beach, which has been called ‘draft day’ for how AI companies use it to recruit talent, Musk told attendees: “I wanted to make it clear that Tesla is serious about AI, both on the software and hardware fronts. We are developing custom AI hardware chips.”

No further details were provided about the company’s plans but Musk gave a shout out to Jim Keller, Vice President of Autopilot Hardware & Software Engineering at Tesla, for developing “AI hardware that we think will be the best in the world.”

However, Musk isn’t exactly a full supporter of AI. On multiple occassions he’s voiced his concerns about AI posing an apocalyptic-level threat to mankind if it’s not properly regulated.

“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful,” said Musk. “I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.”

Musk even recently described his investments in AI research as “keeping an eye on what’s going on”, rather than viable return on capital.

The only thing less surprising than Tesla building AI is Musk’s optimism for driverless cars. While Tesla also manufactures things such as home batteries and even solar panels, the company’s main focus is cars.

Tesla’s vehicles pioneered many semi-autonomous features and have the capabilities to become fully driverless later on after the regulatory and insurance pieces come into place for each country.

At the party, Musk said he believes “half of new cars built ten years from now will be autonomous” and that general artificial intelligence will arrive in around seven or eight years.

What are your thoughts on Tesla building AI chips?

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As the UK prepares to depart the EU, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is boosting funding of industries where the UK is already emerging a leader to help solidify its position on the world stage.

£75 million will be set aside for artificial intelligence to build on the existing success stories from the likes of Cambridge-based DeepMind — which was acquired by Google for £400 million back in 2014. Up to £20 million will support companies developing AI services while £45 million will support increasing the number of PhD students studying AI each year.

Part of the reason for the lack of electric vehicle adoption in many European countries is the lack of supporting infrastructure. £400 million will be invested in charging points along with a further £100 million to boost purchases of clean cars.

This infrastructure will also help with the deployment of driverless cars — but the biggest hurdle remains setting insurance and regulatory policies. Speaking to our sister publication IoT News back in January, Jeremy Dalton, CTO of TravelSpirit, noted the Department for Transport’s work to create an environment for autonomous vehicles to be developed with little hindrance.

5G will enable greater connectivity and open up new possibilities for the IoT. Driverless cars and their connected features will likely require this next-generation mobile technology for its greatly reduced latency and increased reliability. A further £35 million will be made available to ensure rail passengers have reliable and “lightning-speed” connections during journeys. Trials will begin on the Trans-Pennine route which connects Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool.

Other related announcements in the budget includes £76 million to boost digital and construction skills, £9 million to fund an advisory board for safe and ethical innovation, and £100 million to train an additional 8,000 qualified computer science teachers (supported by a new National Centre for Computing.)

The government funding is alongside increasing private investment in AI and IoT. According to Deloitte’s new Digital Disruption Index, 85 percent of senior executives plan to invest in artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things by 2020. More than half of the organisations surveyed expect to invest over £10 million in digital technologies such as AI, cloud, robotics, analytics, blockchain, the IoT, and virtual and augmented reality.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Monday a 1.7 billion pound fund to help regenerate cities and a 2.3 billion pound boost to research and development spending, due in 2021/22.

“This is a new long-term approach to shaping a stronger and fairer economy for decades to come,” May said in a Times newspaper article.

Whether it’s private or public investment, there’s little debate over the importance of giving these industries all the financial support they need to grow and thrive.

Are you impressed with the funding in the budget of future industries? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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