AMD to provide chips for NIO’s vehicle R&D

Shanghai (Gasgoo)-

U.S.-based chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (“AMD”) announced earlier this week it has entered into a partnership with NIO to offer chips to the Chinese EV startup.

Based on the cooperation, NIO employs AMD's EPYC family of processors in its HPC (high-performance computing) platform, which is expected to speed up AI deep learning training, curtail costs, and shorten product development cycles, the chip maker said in a video posted on its Twitter-like Weibo account.

AMD EPYC processor; photo credit: AMD

Based on the EPYC series of processors, NIO's HPC platform now posts a 50% year-on-year hike in the single-day simulation task volume, said AMD.

It is noteworthy that AMD's chips will only be used in NIO's vehicle R&D phase, instead of in mass-produced vehicles.

NIO is now using Qualcomm chips in its vehicles' smart cockpits, while the smart driving chips come from Mobileye and NVIDIA.

The EV startup will hold a online conference to launch its fire-new SUV—the ES7 on June 15. In the meantime, NIO plans to release the 2022 ES6, EC6, and ES8 models, as well as its intelligent cockpit hardware upgrade schemes for existing models, including such new hardware features as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip, intelligent gateway, high-definition camera, and 5G module.