Rongchai Wang
Sep 05, 2024 16:40
Volvo’s new electric EX90 SUV, built on NVIDIA’s DRIVE Orin SoC, offers advanced safety and autonomous driving features.
Volvo Cars’ latest offering, the fully electric EX90 SUV, is now making its way from the automaker’s assembly line in Charleston, South Carolina, to dealerships across the United States. The vehicle is built on cutting-edge NVIDIA technology, ensuring advanced safety features and capabilities.
Advanced Computing for Enhanced Safety
The Volvo EX90 is equipped with the NVIDIA DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC), which boasts a processing capability of over 250 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This high-performance computing power is harnessed to run NVIDIA DriveOS, a system that facilitates all vehicle functions, from safety and driving assistance to autonomous driving capabilities.
The EX90 features Volvo’s most advanced sensor suite, including radar, lidar, cameras, and ultrasonic sensors. The NVIDIA DRIVE Orin SoC processes data from these sensors in real-time, providing 360-degree surround-sensor data processing. This technology underpins Volvo’s commitment to safety, ensuring a secure and efficient driving experience.
Future-Ready with DRIVE Thor
Looking ahead, Volvo Cars plans to integrate the next-generation NVIDIA DRIVE Thor SoC into its upcoming vehicle fleets. The DRIVE Thor SoC promises 1,000 TOPS, quadrupling the processing power of the current DRIVE Orin SoC, while also improving energy efficiency sevenfold.
This new processor will incorporate the NVIDIA Blackwell GPU architecture, unlocking new possibilities for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and self-driving features. Volvo’s CEO Jim Rowan emphasized that the DRIVE Thor will make the company’s in-house developed software more scalable, improve safety, and enhance customer experiences.
Zenseact’s Strategic Investment in AI
Volvo Cars and its software subsidiary, Zenseact, are making significant investments in NVIDIA DGX systems for AI model training in the cloud. These systems will be crucial for equipping future fleets with advanced AI-powered safety features.
The NVIDIA DGX systems provide the computational performance needed to train AI models efficiently, speeding up the development of autonomous technology. Volvo and Zenseact’s AI training hub in the Nordics will utilize these systems to streamline ADAS and autonomous driving software development.
“The NVIDIA DGX AI supercomputer will supercharge our AI training capabilities, making this in-house AI training center one of the largest in the Nordics,” said Anders Bell, chief engineering and technology officer at Volvo Cars. “By leveraging NVIDIA technology and setting up the data center, we pave a quick path to high-performing AI, ultimately helping make our products safer and better.”
With NVIDIA technology serving as the AI brain both inside the car and in the cloud, Volvo Cars and Zenseact aim to deliver safer vehicles that enhance customer peace of mind.
For more information, visit the NVIDIA Blog.
Image source: Shutterstock
