Nvidia, Volkswagen to Cooperate on Artificial Intelligence

German carmaker Volkswagen said on Tuesday it would cooperate with US chipmaker Nvidia on deep learning software that could be used to manage traffic flows or make it easier for humans to work with robots.

"Artificial intelligence is the key to the digital future of the Volkswagen Group," Volkswagen Chief Information Officer Martin Hofmann said in a statement.

"We want to develop and deploy high-performance AI systems ourselves. This is why we are expanding our expert knowledge required. Cooperation with Nvidia will be a major step in this direction," he said.

Nvidia came to prominence in the gaming industry for designing graphics processing chips, but in recent years has been a key player in the automotive sector for providing the so-called "brain" of the autonomous vehicle.

The US-based group separately announced it was also partnering with Volvo Cars and Swedish auto supplier Autoliv to develop self-driving car technology for vehicles due to hit the market by 2021.

A joint venture between Volvo, owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holdings, and Autoliv will work with NVIDIA to develop systems that use artificial intelligence to recognise objects around vehicles, anticipate threats and navigate safely.

The venture set up last year, called Zenuity, will provide Volvo Cars with self-driving software which Autoliv will also be able to sell to other carmakers. Volvo said it aims to have almost fully autonomous cars for sale by 2021. Volvo has been using Nvidia's artificial intelligence systems in a pilot of semi-autonomous vehicles in its home town Gothenburg in southern Sweden since the start of the year.

© Thomson Reuters 2017