Tesla has a strong working relationship with NVIDIA, using the chipmakers graphics cards for its Autopilot feature, but now has plans to build its own AI hardware.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering Jim Keller, a former AMD chip architect who also worked on Apple A4/A5 processor design, spoke to academic and industry researchers at a company party yesterday.
Musk reportedly told the audience:
“I wanted to make it clear that Tesla is serious about AI, both on the software and hardware fronts. We are developing custom AI hardware chips.”
“Jim is developing specialized AI hardware that we think will be the best in the world.”
Tesla could have chosen the easy path to hardware by just continuing to use products from companies like NVIDIA and AMD, but Elon Musk’s statement makes it clear that Tesla wants to build its own hardware on the AI front instead of being dependent on third parties.
In fact, a September report from CNBC cited a person familiar with the matter that Tesla and AMD were working together on just such a chip for its self-driving technology.
The decision to make its own hardware does make sense, and it also shows that Tesla remains extremely serious about AI and its impact on “self-driving” technology, which will be the crucial differentiator between auto companies over the next ten years.
Steve Jobs built Apple with a clear vision on one thing, following computer scientist Alan Kay’s belief that “If you are serious about software you need to make your own hardware.”
There are so many smartphone makers in the world, and then there is Apple, the only company to build its own hardware but still have an extremely successful and highly respected operating system of its own.
Sure, they outsource parts of their hardware production work to other parties, but it’s well known that the most of design process and innovations come from inside Apple. And for some key parts like the display they use suppliers like Samsung.
Musk is clearly going that route, using third party products but keeping them to a minimum while he builds out his own hardware strategy.
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