Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, has announced a strategic partnership with Nvidia to accelerate the development of electric vehicles (EVs) and the artificial intelligence (AI) technology that powers them. This collaboration, revealed at Hon Hai Tech Day in Taiwan, signifies a significant step towards realizing Foxconn’s vision for the future of EVs. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Hon Hai CEO Young Liu joined forces to present the latest advancements resulting from their ongoing partnership.
Focusing on Advancements in Automotive Solutions
This collaboration will leverage Nvidia’s comprehensive suite of automotive solutions and technologies, including the Nvidia Drive Hyperion 9 platform, the Drive Thor central computer, and an advanced sensor architecture. These components are crucial for meeting the computational demands of highly automated and self-driving vehicles that heavily rely on cutting-edge AI capabilities.
“Given the demand worldwide for our products, we don’t expect a near-term meaningful impact on our financial results.” – Nvidia spokesperson
Nvidia’s Drive Orin platform, already chosen by more than 25 global automakers, will serve as the AI brain for Foxconn’s EVs. Known for manufacturing Drive Orin-powered electronic control units (ECUs), Foxconn will also produce ECUs featuring the upcoming Drive Thor superchip. This superchip, which builds on Nvidia’s advanced AI capabilities, is expected to deliver an impressive 2,000 teraflops of high-performance compute power, enabling safe and secure intelligent driving.
The DRIVE Hyperion 9 Platform: Empowering Safe and Precise Navigation
At the heart of this collaboration lies the DRIVE Hyperion 9 platform. As a modular development platform for automated and autonomous vehicles, it incorporates the DRIVE Thor and a qualified sensor architecture capable of level 3 urban and level 4 highway driving scenarios. Equipped with high-resolution cameras, radar, lidar, and ultrasonic sensors, DRIVE Hyperion efficiently processes a vast amount of safety-critical data to enable precise navigation.
One of the standout features of Drive Hyperion is its compatibility across generations, ensuring a seamless transition from Drive Orin to Drive Thor and beyond. Moreover, Nvidia’s stringent qualification processes for sensors help streamline development time and reduce costs for manufacturers like Foxconn.
The industry’s shift towards software-defined vehicles with centralized electronic architectures necessitates high-performance and energy-efficient computing solutions like Drive Thor. When combined with the Drive Hyperion sensor architecture, Foxconn and its automotive partners can usher in a new era of safe and intelligent EVs.
