Lenovo has announced the production release of its AD1 autonomous driving domain controller at their LCFC Hefei manufacturing facility in China. This cutting-edge device is engineered for SAE Level 4 autonomous driving and is built on the powerful Nvidia Drive Thor platform.
The AD1 boasts an impressive computing power of 2100 TOPS (tera operations per second) using FP8/INT8 precision. Its CPU performance is marked at 174 SPECrate 2017, making it a highly capable component for autonomous driving systems. Lenovo ensures that the AD1 meets stringent safety standards, including ASIL-D under ISO 26262, and it adheres to ISO 21434 cybersecurity standards, providing a robust and secure solution for autonomous vehicles.
Equipped with a variety of sensor interfaces, the AD1 is versatile enough to support multiple commercial autonomous driving applications. These include robotaxis, robotrucks, robobuses, and robosweepers, demonstrating its flexibility across different autonomous vehicle types.
Leveraging the Nvidia Drive Thor platform, the AD1 capitalizes on advanced FP4 and FP8 operations. These operations significantly enhance AI inference efficiency while maintaining precision levels comparable to FP16. This technological advantage allows the AD1 to increase the inference speed of Transformer models, which are critical for processing vast amounts of data quickly and accurately in autonomous driving scenarios.
One of the notable adopters of Lenovo’s domain control solution is WeRide, a prominent autonomous driving technology company. WeRide has chosen the Lenovo AD1, based on the Nvidia Drive platform, for its next-generation autonomous driving system. This collaboration highlights the industry’s confidence in Lenovo’s technological advancements and their application in real-world autonomous driving solutions.
Looking ahead, Lenovo plans to expand its domain controller solutions beyond Level 4 autonomy. They aim to cater to the Level 3 and L2++ ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) markets. This strategic move positions Lenovo to address a broader spectrum of autonomous driving needs, from full autonomy to advanced driver support systems, thereby widening their market reach.
