Tesla Dumps NVIDIA, Designs and Deploys its Own Self-driving AI Chip

[Deleted member 158293]

Yeah it was announced while Jim Keller still worked at Tesla that they were dumping nvidia. Not many companies partner with nvidia for very long...

 

[SoNic67]

It's only a matter of time before GPGPUs and CPUs are outclassed by FPGAs and ASICs in the specialized deep learning market, as it grows large enough to justify the development. I hope Nvidia, Intel and AMD don't waste too much on trying to make their products compete in this "niche" market, we need CPUs and GPUs to focus on what they are supposed to be good at.

Intel is not sleeping, already has several inference chips out. I even own one of them:

 

[notb]

Yeah that's fantasy. They are not even level 3 yet.

AFAIK Waymo pretty much is. They use Google's money and Intel's hardware. This also means other Intel parners will follow shortly (and that's a really long list).
Nvidia is just slightly behind Intel, but they also target different cars (mostly premium brands).

But yeah... level 3 is the highest we can get without massive changes to law and infrastructure. Most companies hope to get there in 2020-2021.
Level 5 (cars without manual controls) is decades away even if the AI part will be ready in 5 years.

Intel is not sleeping, already has several inference chips out. I even own one of them:

Intel is a clear AI inference leader at the moment.

Nvidia is leading in learning thanks to the GPUs and Tensors. But this could change with Intel Xe - we'll see soon enough.

I have two questions to that:
1. If your car crashes in another one or a bicyclist or a pedestrian, who will pay for damages and who will go to jail for negligence? You? Will carry insurance even? The automaker?

Well, this is being researched at the moment by all sides (governments, police, insurance companies, carmakers).

Some part of the liability will always be with the car owner. Some will be moved to the manufacturer.
It's quite similar to what we have today. You could have a crash, initially evaluated to be your fault. But if it turns out that the brakes were badly made or assembled, the manufacturer or service will be held responsible.

2. If you "fuel" at the residential electrical grid, how will you pay for the infrastructure (roads/streets) that your car is using? Right now those are paid by gas tax. Will you be OK to have a GPS in the car an be taxed per mile driven?

Infrastructure is paid with tax money. Gas tax is just a part of the budget.

 

[Wavetrex]

who will go to jail for negligence? You? Will carry insurance even? The automaker?

Elon actually answered to this particular question during the presentation. Apparently, if car is fully automatic, Tesla will be responsible, not the passenger, even if the passenger owns the car.

If you "fuel" at the residential electrical grid

Solar panels... power wall, that sort of stuff. With standard gas.... I can't just collect it from rain.

pay for the infrastructure (roads/streets) that your car is using?

I'm guessing there will still be a tax for owning the car, like it is now. At least in the parts of the world where I live, it doesn't matter if a car drives or not, we pay a monthly tax for simply having it.

Will you be OK to have a GPS in the car an be taxed per mile driven?

That will most likely apply to where using somebody else's Robotaxi. If using own car (in fully automatic mode) you won't pay per distance, because you paid for the car itself.

 

[john_]

No "beating" is happening at the moment. Tesla decided to cut costs by designing their own chips. That's all.

My comment wasn't about NOW, but more about now AND mostly tomorrow. With most big companies announcing their own solutions for AI, it's really interesting to see if Nvidia does have an advantage with it's GPUs, or if GPUs are in fact NOT the best option for AI. If custom hardware can be designed to offer performance equal or better than the best GPU out there, at lower costs and greater efficiency, Nvidia will slowly start falling behind in the AI game.

No offense, but you can't be serious saying things like that.
You'd be happy if a leading AI chip company left this business and focused on gaming?
That is just dumb.

It's funny when someone is adding that "no offense" part in the post, just before he actually offend you by being rude. If you disagree, just say that you disagree. it's not that much difficult. Try it.

 

[sergionography]

Double die size, 500 squaer milimeters, 7nm, and put 10 to 20 Chips on a board. youll have Level 6 autonomy. Level six will make you breakfast, finish your work frrom your workplace while it drives you there.

And dispatch a robot clone of yourself to go to work in your place while at it!

 

[john_]

What? nVidia has an ~80% market share for gaming graphics cards. They never left the PC market.

My English must be really bad.

Nvidia is focusing on AI and try to sell AI in the PC gaming market also. Well, everyone is doing that actually, promoting AI capabillities, but no one tries to charge twice the price for the product just because, well, you know, it comes with AI that does this and that (raytracing in Nvidia's case). Nvidia's focus is in AI the last couple of years. That's what I mean that they 'll have to come back to the PC market. I mean they have to make it a priority again.

 

[sergionography]

I have two questions to that:
1. If your car crashes in another one or a bicyclist or a pedestrian, who will pay for damages and who will go to jail for negligence? You? Will carry insurance even? The automaker?
2. If you "fuel" at the residential electrical grid, how will you pay for the infrastructure (roads/streets) that your car is using? Right now those are paid by gas tax. Will you be OK to have a GPS in the car an be taxed per mile driven?

1. The insurance would pay for damages but no one would be classified as guilty.

2. Or just phase out taxes all together because they are the most useless invention. Taxes are the devil lol

 

[Patriot]

Its a (72w) solution. It was in the Presentation. Its replacing a Modified Nvidia Drive PX 2 system (57w) and is saving them 20% in cost while delivering 1.25x.

21x is in reference to Frames it can process per second in comparison.

Thank you for finding that, was looking for it everywhere....but it was 2:30 in the morning.
Interesting note.
PX2 was originally quoted at 250w tdp, and pegasis at 500w tdp.

144 int8 tops is truly impressive for 72w .... that actually beats the t4 130tops/70w efficiency.

Intel is not sleeping, already has several inference chips out. I even own one of them:

*Bought several inference chip companies: Nervana, Movidius, Altera

Which stagnated for several years after purchase (Altera )
They finally announced the first new cards since acquisition.

I watched Intels presentation on some of the Altera cards, found it interesting that they kind of peaked performance at INT 11.
The flexibility and ability to adjust and rearrange is uniquely interesting... that said, nvidia dropped the T4 right after they almost caught up on inferencing performance with the P4.
Qualcomm's solution will be in the >100Tops range most likely int8 (based on some slide math, ai100 = >50x SD820, SD855 =3x SD820, SD855=7Tops)
Depending on TDP that will make the inferencing realm more cozy.

Intel's advantage is in mindshare and their One Api... training on Nervana/Xe, inference on Movidius, Altera and Xeon... trying to control the whole stack and make a vertical solution. They have a lot of different potent IP.

If only tesla was selling these chips to others, that would really stir the pot up.

 

[SoNic67]

1. The insurance would pay for damages but no one would be classified as guilty.

2. Or just phase out taxes all together because they are the most useless invention. Taxes are the devil lol

1. Who's insurance? Car's owner? No, insurance won't pay in that case, because it would say it's not be car owner's fault. Probably it won't even insure a vehicle if the owner doesn't have any responsibility.
So the victims will not be compensated?
2. So how will be roads maintained? Slave work?

 

[sergionography]

1. Who's insurance? Car's owner? No, insurance won't pay in that case, because it would say it's not be car owner's fault. Probably it won't even insure a vehicle if the owner doesn't have any responsibility.
So the victims will not be compensated?
2. So how will be roads maintained? Slave work?

1. Insurance specialise in avoiding payment thats nothing new, but im sure once autonomous cars become a thing they will somehow figure out a way. If anything it works better for them because AI has the potential to be safer than humans so insuring driverless cars isn't out of the norm of what am insurance company does. Also autonomous cars are probably easier for insurance companies to categorize and predict accident amounts etc.

2. One thing people forget is that plenty great nations in history were build without needing taxation(nor slavery). The USA was established without taxation and actually it was created in order to avoid british taxation(or one of the motives). The only time america began using taxes is first during the civil war and then more added around the world wars 1 and 2/great depression. Taxes fund wars and not roads lol. Anyways this is an extremely generalized view on this, but to be honest i was more sarcastic initially when i said it. Though sarcasm sure has some elements of truth.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Yeah it was announced while Jim Keller still worked at Tesla that they were dumping nvidia. Not many companies partner with nvidia for very long...

It never gets old

 

[notb]

Elon actually answered to this particular question during the presentation. Apparently, if car is fully automatic, Tesla will be responsible, not the passenger, even if the passenger owns the car.

Musk says whatever he wants.
The legislator decides who is responsible.
And it's not that simple.
Of course, the passengers can't be held responsible for AI driving errors. But a car is so much more than just driving. You, as the owner (not driver!), will still be expected to look after tires (state, pressure), brakes (disks, calipers, fluid), remove snow and so on.

You'll be required to clean all the cameras before every journey, i.e. the car shouldn't start at all even if there's a tiny piece of mud before the lens (because it can easily cover a pedestrian).

And what if something attaches in front of the camera while driving?
After a 200km of highway driving in summer, I have hundreds of insects splashed all over the front of the car. And I'm in central Europe - it has to be way worse in places like Brazil or India.
Will the car stop and force you to clean it? And what if it's on a highway and stopping isn't allowed?

There are so many questions and so many scenarios that we're not even close to finding a solution. Making an AI fast enough not to hit other objects is just a part of the problem.

I'm guessing there will still be a tax for owning the car, like it is now. At least in the parts of the world where I live, it doesn't matter if a car drives or not, we pay a monthly tax for simply having it.

It's not that common globally, but sure - that's one of the possible outcomes.

My comment wasn't about NOW, but more about now AND mostly tomorrow. With most big companies announcing their own solutions for AI, it's really interesting to see if Nvidia does have an advantage with it's GPUs, or if GPUs are in fact NOT the best option for AI. If custom hardware can be designed to offer performance equal or better than the best GPU out there, at lower costs and greater efficiency, Nvidia will slowly start falling behind in the AI game.

Tesla is a car-making branch of a technological "Musk Group". It's not a surprise that they've decided to make an in-house inference system. All Musk's companies are heavily invested into AI.

Other car makers will not go this path. AI chips (computers in general) are very far from what they focus on - which is designing cars.
There's no reason for BMW or Ford to invest billions in making their own AI chip, when they buy mechanical parts(like brakes or dampers) from specialized manufacturers.

 

[SoNic67]

Thinking that a computer driven car will never fail is just... wishful thinking. We already have numerous examples of fatalities related to AI driving, and if the history of PC teaches us anything is that there will always be "glitches". Updates to fix bad fixes. Even BSOD events (who knows what color will be)...
Sure, they can be very rare, but what if it happens that YOU are the one killed? Or your loved one? Suddenly is personal.
And you can't have closure with a machine... You can't put it in jail, it's not even show remorse or regret. You'll be a "blip".
There will be no "insurance", I saw no believable suggestion for responsibility in case of a computer error.

Also, roads need to be build and maintained. It's only fair that whomever uses them to pay for them, there is no free lunch.

I understand the mentality that "others should pay for me", but that leads to society collapse. Like happend in Eastern Europe communism. Or Venezuela. You run out of "other people" money.
Someone pays for everything in the end, in general taxes and fees are supposed to make it "fair". Sure politicians will corrupt the system just because they promise free stuff to the idiots that are believing them. That's why they hate the ideea of a flat tax... they lose the power of dangling free stuff in front of voters.

PS: As for the fact that there were no taxes in US history - sure. That's why it was so great without them - dust bowl, depression, hunger, unemployment, horrid work conditions (no OSHA), weak military (we barely could fight pirates), roads of dirt.
Nobody wants to go back to that.

 

[notb]

It's funny when someone is adding that "no offense" part in the post, just before he actually offend you by being rude. If you disagree, just say that you disagree. it's not that much difficult. Try it.

I think you're right.

You earlier comment was dumb. Fell offended.