Nvidia and Foxconn are working collectively to construct so-called “AI factories,” a brand new class of knowledge facilities that promise to offer supercomputing powers to speed up the event of self-driving vehicles, autonomous machines and industrial robots.
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Foxconn chairman and CEO Younger Liu introduced the collaboration at Hon Hai Tech Day in Taiwan on Tuesday. The AI manufacturing facility is predicated off an Nvidia GPU computing infrastructure that shall be constructed to course of, refine and remodel huge quantities of knowledge into priceless AI fashions and knowledge.
“We’re constructing this complete end-to-end system the place on the one hand, you’re constructing this superior EV automobile…with an AI mind inside that permits it to work together with drivers and work together with passengers, in addition to autonomously drive, complemented by an AI manufacturing facility that develops a software program for this automobile,” stated Huang onstage on the occasion. “This automobile will undergo life expertise and accumulate extra knowledge. The information will go to the AI manufacturing facility, the place the AI manufacturing facility will enhance the software program and replace the complete AI fleet.”
The AI manufacturing facility tie-up builds off a partnership between Nvidia and Foxconn introduced in January to develop autonomous automobile platforms. That settlement concerned Foxconn turning into a major provider of digital management items (ECUs) for automakers, which shall be constructed with Nvidia’s Drive Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC), a supercomputing AI platform that helps autonomous driving capabilities. On Tuesday, Foxconn additionally dedicated to manufacturing ECUs with Drive Thor, Nvidia’s next-gen SoC, after manufacturing begins in 2025.
As a part of that partnership, Foxconn — which has been steadily unveiling off-the-shelf EV platforms for automakers to buy — stated the automobiles it makes as a contract producer shall be constructed with Nvidia’s Drive Hyperion 9 platform, which incorporates not solely Drive Thor, but in addition a set of sensors like cameras, radar, lidar and ultrasonic which might be essential for self-driving capabilities.
Foxconn is already contracted to construct EVs for Fisker, even because it will get sued by its erstwhile companion Lordstown Motors. The automaker will want scale so as to make its AI factories viable, particularly if it’s going to compete with Tesla.
As a result of these AI factories are basically rivals to Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer, which the Elon Musk-owned automaker began manufacturing on over the summer time. Dojo will prepare Tesla’s neural nets, that are used to energy, prepare and enhance “full self-driving” (FSD), the automaker’s superior driver help system. Musk hopes FSD will truly be totally self driving someday, which is the place the highly effective compute of Dojo is available in.
Tesla right this moment makes use of a big Nvidia GPU-based supercomputer, however the brand new Dojo shall be custom-built utilizing chips designed by Tesla. The Foxconn-Nvidia AI factories shall be primarily based on Nvidia’s GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and AI Enterprise software program, in keeping with the corporate.
The factories may have different functions past self-driving vehicles.
On stage at Hon Hai’s tech occasion, Liu shared Foxconn’s purpose to transform itself “from a producing service firm to a platform options firm” by scaling the AI factories throughout varied industries. Foxconn is focusing on three platforms to begin: Sensible EVs, sensible cities and sensible manufacturing.
“It is a manufacturing facility that takes knowledge enter and produces intelligence as an output,” stated Huang, as Liu nodded his assent. “Sooner or later, each trade, each firm may have an AI manufacturing facility.”