Tesla Rumored to Design Own Chip for Self-Driving Cars With AMD
The race towards developing a successful self-driving car has forged some of the strangest partnerships to date, and Tesla is no exception. The car maker is reportedly collaborating with AMD to make its own chip to handle sensing and autonomous driving in its cars.
A source confided to CNBC that the partnership has already come up with results, as Elon Musk's company already have its hands on the first prototypes of the chips. Testing is already underway, the insider, who claims to be familiar with the proceedings, added.
Tesla has previously looked to Nvidia and its graphics processing units to power self-driving systems. The electric car maker also used to deal with Mobileye to handle its Autopilot parts, at least until an accident involving a Tesla driven by a Mobileye component happened.
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Nvidia has teamed up with automotive supplier Bosch earlier this March, putting its bet in the race for self-driving cars. Meanwhile, Mobileye has since been snapped up by Intel for a cool $15.3 billion in the same month.
Intel has been working with Google's umbrella company Alphabet, supplying components for its Waymo car subsidiary for its own ongoing foray into self-driving cars.
Tesla's alleged move is being seen as the company's way of becoming more self-sufficient, making it much less dependent on Nvidia for its autonomous driving hardware development. An in-house chip will also make Tesla less susceptible to pricing fluctuations from Nvidia or another third-party supplier.
The reports seem to be supported by a statement said by GlobalFoundries CEO Sanjay Jha in a tech conference on Wednesday, Sep. 20. Jha reportedly mentioned Tesla as a company that works with fabricators like them.
GlobalFoundries, a spin-off of AMD that fabricates chips for them, released a statement later that denied rumors that CEO Jha mentioned a direct link between them and Tesla. AMD and the carmaker have not responded to requests for comments about these rumors as of this time, according to Electrek.
