On January 20, Pony.ai introduced a computing unit solution with different computing power configurations, based on one or more NVIDIA Orin system-on-chip(Soc) and NVIDIA automotive-grade Ampere-structured GPUs, powered by NVIDIA DRIVE Orin™ (SoC).
Background Pony.ai is a Chinese autonomous driving startup founded in 2016, headquartered in GuangZhou. Previously, Pony.ai’s R&D in L4 and L5 autonomous driving systems were mostly backed by Toyota Motor and NIO.
Now, with CUDA® parallel computing framework and the Deep Learning Accelerator (NVDLA), NVIDIA DRIVE Orin™ (SoC) helps with mass-production of high-performance hardware for autonomous driving with its 254 TOPS of computing power.
The new computing units offer extremely low latency, powerful performance and high reliability. Pony.ai is pioneering the introduction of multiple computing unit solutions with different chip configurations to meet the technical requirements of both autonomous car and autonomous truck development.
Pony.ai’s strong determination in success
In 2017, Pony.ai built a partnership with NVIDIA and applied its NVIDIA DRIVE platform for the first.
In May 2021, in order to accelerate the hardware development process, Pony.ai worked with NVIDIA to develop an Orin-based autonomous driving computing unit.
In Nov 2021,Pony.ai was one of the first companies to be granted a pilot permit for the commercialisation of autonomous driving in Beijing.
In Dec 2021, Pony.ai became the first company to road test self-driving trucks on public highways in China, and was the only company to have an autonomous driving truck road test license in both Beijing and Guangzhou.
In addition, Pony.ai is now one of the first companies to conduct autonomous driving road tests in all four of the country’s top tier cities.
Pony.ai in the future
Pony.ai is driving the next generation of autonomous driving hardware and software systems to vehicle-scale production to expedite the deployment of L4 level autonomous driving technology.
The new computing unit will start mass production by the end of 2022 and Pony.ai has already started to provide samples of the Orin computing unit to its partners.
In the near future, Pony.ai will be an integral part of the development of EV in China for sure.
