For Safer Cars, Nvidia Unveils New Tegra X1 Processor at the 2015 CES

Nvidia, the Santa Clara company known for its GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) and chips has shifted gears to unveil a new processor specially designed to empower high-end graphics on car dashboards. The processor was showcased at the ongoing CES (Consumer Electronics Show ) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

At the event, Nvidia announced the Tegra X1 processor, which CEO Jen-Hsun Huang described as a tiny workhorse for smartphones and cars. Huang also unveiled two new technologies for cars using the Tegra X1. Automakers could use Nvidia's Drive PX platform to push advanced driver-assistance systems, a step closer to self-driving cars.

Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO and co-founder, NVIDIA said, “We see a future of autonomous cars, robots and drones that see and learn, with seeming intelligence that is hard to imagine. They will make possible safer driving, more secure cities and great conveniences for all of us.”

Tegra X1 is built on the same NVIDIA Maxwell GPU architecture which was launched for  world’s top-performing gaming graphics card, the GeForce® GTX 980. The 256-core Tegra X1 provides twice the performance of its predecessor, the Tegra K1, which is based on the previous-generation Kepler architecture and debuted at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show.

The processor will be featured in the newly announced NVIDIA DRIVE car computers. DRIVE PX is an auto-pilot computing platform that can process video from up to 12 onboard cameras to run capabilities providing Surround-Vision, for a seamless 360-degree view around the car, and Auto-Valet, for true self-parking.

Mr Huang also further added “To achieve this dream, enormous advances in visual and parallel computing are required. The Tegra X1 mobile super chip, with its one teraflops of processing power, is a giant step into this revolution.”

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