Las Vegas, January 9, 2024 – Today at CES, Intel shared plans to expand its AI-ubiquitous strategy into the automotive market. The move includes the acquisition of Silicon Mobility, a fabless chip and software company focused on smart electric vehicle energy management SoCs. In addition, Intel also launched a new series of AI-enhanced software-defined in-vehicle SoCs and announced that Zeekr will be the first automaker to adopt this new SoC, aiming to provide generative AI-powered mobile living room experiences for next-generation vehicles.
Intel is taking a 'complete vehicle' approach to solving the industry's biggest challenges, driving innovation across the entire automotive platform with AI solutions to help the industry transition to electric vehicles," said Jack Weast, Intel Fellow, Corporate Vice President, and General Manager of the Automotive Business Unit. ”
As the EV transition accelerates, customer demand for in-vehicle experiences continues to grow, reinforcing Intel's commitment to supporting the software-defined vehicle strategy. In addition, Intel has committed to providing the industry's first UCIE-based open automotive chip platform for software-defined vehicles. To ensure that its advanced packaging technology meets the stringent quality and reliability requirements of the automotive industry, Intel will work closely with imec (Belgian Microelectronics Research Center). At the same time, Intel will lead the development of the industry international standard for new EV power management.
Today, Intel's SoCs are used in more than 50 million vehicles, powering infotainment systems, displays, digital instrument clusters, and more. Going forward, Intel's expanded AI-enhanced "full vehicle" roadmap will propel the industry toward a more scalable, software-defined, and sustainable era.
Intel's acquisition of Silicon Mobility unlocks a more sustainable electrified future
Silicon Mobility SAS, co-invested by Cipio Partners and Capital-E, is a fabless automotive chip and software company specializing in the design, development, and deployment of energy management SoCs for electric vehicles. Its SoC features an industry-leading accelerator designed for energy delivery, fused with highly advanced software algorithms to significantly improve vehicle energy efficiency.
Silicon Mobility's advanced technologies will enable Intel to further expand its presence in the automotive space, from high-performance computing to intelligent and programmable power devices. However, the acquisition is subject to the necessary regulatory approvals.
Intel's open platform brings the AI PC experience to the car
The new AI-enhanced software-defined automotive SoC family addresses the industry's critical needs for power and performance scalability. This family of SoCs incorporates the AI acceleration technologies in Intel's AI PC roadmap to support ideal in-vehicle AI use cases such as camera-based driver and passenger monitoring systems.
During CES, a demo showcased 12 advanced workloads, including generative AI, electronic mirrors, HD** conference calls, and PC gaming. They run concurrently on multiple operating systems, which includes a mix of key use cases. The demo showcases how automakers can integrate traditional electronic control unit (ECU) architectures, integrating their proprietary custom solutions and AI applications to improve efficiency, manageability, and scalability.
"The Intel AI-enhanced software-defined vehicle SoC integrates advanced AI PC technology and Intel data center technology to meet the needs of a true software-defined vehicle architecture," said Jack Weast. ”
Zeekr is the first to bring Intel-powered generative AI experiences to the next generation of electric vehicles
Geely's Zeekr brand will be the first OEM to adopt Intel's new software-defined automotive SoC series. An Conghui, President of Geely Holding Group and CEO of Zeekr***, explained how the combination of forward compatibility of Intel systems and Intel's AI acceleration technology enables Zeekr to continuously expand and upgrade its services to enable next-generation experiences that meet customer needs, such as generative AI voice assistants.
Open standards are the key to success in the industry
To drive the transition to electric vehicles and sustainable software-defined vehicles more smoothly, Intel and SAE International announced the formation of a committee to provide automotive standards for vehicle platform power management (J3311). Intel will serve as chair of the committee.
Inspired by the proven power management technologies in the PC industry's ACPI standard, the new SAE standard will accelerate the transformation by adopting and enhancing the PC industry's advanced power management concepts, helping all electric vehicles become more energy-efficient and sustainable.
Currently, the members of the Standards Committee include representatives from Stellantis, HERE, and Monolithic Power Solutions (MPS). The committee is open to more industry players and expects to submit the first draft standard within 12 to 18 months.
Intel is committed to an open automotive chiplet platform
Intel also announced plans to collaborate with its R&D center, IMEC, to ensure that its advanced chip-based packaging technology meets the stringent quality and reliability requirements required for automotive use cases.
The move underscores Intel's commitment to becoming the first automotive vendor to support the integration of third-party chips into its automotive products. This gives OEMs the option to integrate custom chips into Intel's roadmap products at a fraction of the cost of a fully customized SOC. The ability to mix and match cores not only further reduces the risk associated with vendor constraints, but also facilitates the development of more scalable software-defined architectures.