BERLIN, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- German automotive supplier Continental and U.S. graphics processor and computer chip producer Nvidia have announced a new joint venture on Monday to develop technology for self-driving vehicles.
Both firms will cooperate to develop artificial intelligence (AI) computer systems for car functions ranging from limited automated tasks to their fully-autonomous operations.
"The partnership will enable the production of AI computer systems that scale from automated Level 2 features through full Level 5 self-driving capabilities, where the vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals," a press statement by Continental read.
"We now have all the key elements in place to take AI self-driving cars from development to mass production," Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of NVIDIA commented on the joint venture announcement.
Continental has placed a research focus on self-driving cars for several years and has previously teamed up with Chinese search engine operator Baidu towards this end. Responding to widespread expectations that autonomous mobility will constitute a major growth market for the global automotive industry in the future, several carmakers have sought to form similar partnerships with technology firms. Nvidia currently already has links to Tesla, Bosch, Toyota, Volvo and Volkswagen in this context.
Hannover-based Continental has recently experienced strong demand for its new sensor, camera and steering technologies which enable partially-automated driving. The Dax-listed firm recoded revenue of 1.2 billion euros (1.49 billion U.S. dollars) from its driver-assistance-systems in 2016 alone and expects the figure to rise to more than 2.5 billion by 2020.
"The vehicle of the future will be a sensing, planning and acting computer on wheels. The complexity of autonomous driving requires nothing less than the full computational horsepower of an AI supercomputer," a statement by Continental CEO Elmar Degenhart read.
