Employees of the American company Cruise, a subsidiary of auto giant General Motors, have officially announced their ambitious plans to create and manufacture their own chips for the vehicles of the future. Representatives of GM’s “daughter” reported that for several reasons they no longer wanted to trust third-party processor manufacturers, but the main problem was that the costs of purchasing chips from partner companies were too high, this was admitted. Written by Carl Jenkins, the company’s vice president of hardware development software.

Two years ago we were paying a lot of money for GPUs from a reputable supplier for our cars. Now is the time to take the future into your own hands.– Added Jenkins.

It is worth noting that Cruise representatives only mentioned third-party manufacturers in their press releases, but did not name specific companies whose chips turned out to be too expensive for the manufacturer. But you can guess even without direct references – we are talking about the company NVIDIA and its solutions for smart cars. It was the “green team” that began supplying computing chips for Cruise projects two years ago, and apparently the “daughter” of the auto giant did not have such significant volumes to negotiate the price. Now everything has changed, because Cruise is the first company in the United States to be allowed to charge for trips without the involvement of a driver.

And the self-driving car business right now, and although the company is working in this direction, although it is at an early stage of development, it will be a huge market in the near future. Accordingly, Cruise has decided to leave NVIDIA in order not to lose the lion’s share of profits in the decade when self-driving taxis will become the norm. What’s more, Jenkins said Cruise has already developed four of its chips that will become the main “brains” of smart cars of the future. They are responsible for processing data from sensors and radars, managing the multimedia system, and more.

The company wants to use all these developments in Cruise Origin – this is a drone presented in 2020 without a steering wheel and pedals in the cabin. Instead, the car will have four seats facing each other inside, and automation will be entirely responsible for the journey itself. So far, it’s unclear exactly when Cruise Origin will launch into full release, but the manufacturer should offer its first own chips as early as 2025.