Baidu vehicle gets AI from Nvidia

NVIDIA Corp announced the debut of a smaller and more efficient artificial intelligence (AI) system for self-driving cars that would operate Baidu’s navigation and autonomous vehicle technology.

The DRIVE PX2 AI computer unveiled by Nvidia is already marked for use by Chinese company Baidu in its self-driving auto; thanks to an earlier announced team-up between Nvidia and Baidu for developing a complete, “cloud-to-car” autonomous driving system. It makes it possible to process visual and sensor data from self-driving car-mounted monitoring systems in real-time on board a vehicle, which is crucial for autonomy because it has to be able to act without a connection to a powerful remote server.

Configured with a single processor, the Drive PX 2 combines incoming data from sensors and uses deep neural networks to produce a complex picture of objects around a vehicle.

He said that the PX 2 demonstrates the platform’s scalability. The processors’ architecture scales from a single mobile processor configuration, to a combination of two mobile processors and two discrete GPUs, to multiple DRIVE PX 2s.

The Nvidia Drive PX 2 also uses neural networks that are trained in the company’s data center called Nvidia DGX-1. This move sprouted when NVIDIA and Baidu announced a partnership to deliver a self-driving cloud-to-car system for Chinese automakers, as well as global brands, last week at Baidu World in Beijing. This device can be used by automakers to power automated and autonomous vehicles for driving and mapping. The single-processor Drive PX 2 will be available to production partners in the fourth quarter.

This new small form-factor Nvidia Drive PX 2 will be the AI engine of the Baidu’s self-driving auto. Nvidia also offers its DriveWorks suite of software, which includes tools, libraries and modules, to help with the development and testing of autonomous vehicles. It supports automotive inputs/outputs, including ethernet, CAN and Flexray.

The Drive PX 2 platform includes a Pascal-based processor, two discrete GPUs and Parker SoC configuration to enable autonomous functions in cars. It targets the world’s most demanding users – gamers, designers and scientists – with products, services and software that power unbelievable experiences in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, professional visualization and autonomous cars.