"AI" chip of Nvidia's autonomous driving puts the company on the road to success

Recently, Nvidia has not experienced a wonderful time. Due to the implosion of the cryptocurrency scene, which has dropped its stock – lower prices for virtual coins mean reduced demand for Nvidia's graphics processors, used in the extraction cryptocurrency – but here's good news for the US chip maker.

The company announced on Wednesday that it has signed agreements with three Chinese manufacturers of electric cars to develop a technology that enables the autonomous driving capabilities of their products.

XPeng Motors, Singulato Motors and SF Motors join a long list of customers of Xavier van Nvidia's "artificial intelligence" chip, designed for autonomous vehicles. Uber, Baidu, Volkswagen, Mercedes and Audi are among the other automakers to develop Xavier systems.

According to Reuters, XPeng will build level 3 autonomous capacity in cars starting in 2020. Level 3 autonomy allows cars to drive alone, but forces the driver to remain alert and ready to take control – this feature is already available in The new A8 of Audi.

Singulato, meanwhile, will start at level 3 and eventually move to level 4 autonomy, in which drivers are free to nap as long as the car travels along normal routes and mapped. In Sweden, another customer of Xavier, Volvo, plans to market a level 4 car by 2021.