Amidst US vs China Spate, Companies Bring In-House AI Chip Making

GM-owned Cruise is promoting in-house AI chip making, just like Tesla and other top companies

The world is experiencing a tech revolution that is entirely driven by artificial intelligence and its adjoining technologies. Artificial intelligence's dominance has grown exponentially, making it one-of-a-kind weapon that almost every country wishes to possess. And at that, surprisingly, China is winning! Most countries are currently afraid of China since the country's government has been trying to regulate AI and other disruptive technologies mainly to spy on its citizens, weaponize them, and use them as a defense. China has also launched several cyberattacks on other countries, the United States being the most common example. The strained relations between China and USA are now affecting the operations of big tech companies. But amid all this rubble, hi-tech companies are promoting in-house AI chip making, to bring down costs and scale up production.

GM-owned Cruise Promotes In-house AI Chip Making

Quite recently, the self-driving company Cruise launched a project involving in-house AI chip making. Cruise is basically a General Motors-owned self-driving startup that is following Tesla's footsteps and might become its next big competitor. And quite like Tesla, Cruise has also started planning to develop its own processors and will be deployed in Cruise vehicles by 2025. The company claims that this move will help reduce vehicle costs and scale up production to help pay for the strategic growth. This strategy also simulates effectively General Motor's plan to leverage hands-free driving across vehicle segments.

But when it comes to chip development, taking control might become too expensive. The type of AI chips that Cruise has to deploy is generally valued at over US$100 million for designing. The company's in-house silicon team has developed almost four chips to date, including the 'main brain' processor for its Origin vehicle, which mainly aims at data processing and using machine learning to reduce latency. Cruise is also partnering up with a leading manufacturer in Asia to facilitate the in-house AI chip making process.

Bottom Line

Tech experts predict that Cruise's decision to facilitate in-house chip making might motivate other self-driving companies to take up the same process. Gartner predicts that by 2025, some of the top automotive companies and self-driving manufacturers will move towards in-house chip designing to promote efficiency and production. Besides, if China and the US can readily accept trade terms and move forward, US automotive car manufacturers and other companies would be able to perform trade diligently.