Nvidia has lengthy been concerned within the growth of autonomous car applied sciences, offering the business with graphic processing items that may carry out tens of millions of calculations concurrently. Now the semiconductor powerhouse is stepping up its AV recreation by looking for a expertise enhance in China.
The agency is recruiting two dozen roles for an autonomous driving staff unfold throughout Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, in accordance with a submit on its official WeChat account on Tuesday. The unit, consisting of positions in software program, end-to-end platform, system integration, mapping, and product, is led by Xinzhou Wu, who’s acknowledged for bringing good driving options to mass-produced autos in China over the previous couple of years.
In August, Nvidia employed Wu, the previous head of autonomous autos at Xpeng, a Chinese language electrical car upstart usually in comparison with Tesla for its dedication to good driving. In line with Wu’s LinkedIn profile, he joined as Nvidia’s head of automotive and serves on the manager workers staff reporting on to Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of the chip big.
Nvidia enjoys a important place within the self-driving house due to its highly effective graphics playing cards. In September final yr, the corporate unveiled its newest era of automotive-grade chip referred to as Thor, which has a 2,000 teraflops of efficiency.
It’s unsurprising that Nvidia has designated China as an vital hub for its AV endeavors. Minimize-throat competitors within the nation’s auto business has pushed many electrical carmakers to put money into autonomous driving, producing a pool of expertise skilled in bringing the know-how from R&D to mass manufacturing.
Certainly, Wu, who serves as the pinnacle of AV at Nvidia and personally leads the China AV staff, alludes to the nation’s important function in probably fueling the agency’s business success in good driving. In line with his assertion included within the job posting:
“Let’s hope that the Chinese language autonomous driving staff can change into a core pressure in driving the commercialization of Nvdia’s autonomous driving merchandise, tapping the nation’s expertise and expertise to create autonomous driving merchandise for the worldwide market.”
Led by Wu, Nvidia’s AV staff carries out wide-ranging features to “design, create, and deploy” AI methods for automation and autonomous autos, in accordance with the submit. Particularly, the unit performs AI coaching and testing duties in addition to real-time information processing in autos, which might embody robotaxis, business fleets and passenger automobiles.
Wu’s job hopping has had the blessing of his former boss. In a Weibo submit saying Wu’s departure, Xpeng’s founder and CEO He Xiaopeng expressed pleasure in his former worker for attaining a “top-level administration function” at a “globally famend firm,” which turned out to be Nvidia.
On social media, He and Wu have every hinted at a tie-up between Xpeng and Nvidia within the space of semiconductors. In a photograph posted by Wu the day earlier than he began at Nvidia, he was flanked by Huang and He, suggesting a detailed partnership between the 2 corporations.
“Tomorrow is my first day at Nvidia, and I admire Xiaopeng for personally escorting me right here. In line with Previous Huang [Jensen Huang], I’ll nonetheless be working for Xiaopeng sooner or later, simply with out him having to pay my wage,” Wu wrote within the submit.
TechCrunch has reached out to Nvidia for touch upon the recruitment announcement.
