PALO ALTO: Honda Motor Co. and the artificial intelligence chip company Mythic announced a partnership Tuesday to develop a new, highly efficient computing system for future vehicles, aiming to significantly advance driver-assist and autonomous features while supporting Honda’s long-term safety and environmental goals.
The companies said they have entered a joint development agreement in which Honda’s research subsidiary will license Mythic’s Analog Processing Unit technology. They plan to co-develop an automotive-grade artificial intelligence system-on-chip for deployment in Honda’s next-generation software-defined vehicles by the late 2020s or early 2030s.
The core of the partnership is Mythic’s analog compute-in-memory architecture, which the company says is about 100 times more energy-efficient than conventional digital AI chips. This efficiency is critical for vehicles, which have limited power budgets. The technology combines memory and computation into a single layer, an approach inspired by the human brain.
The joint effort targets creating AI systems capable of delivering over 100,000 TOPS, or trillions of operations per second, within a strict low-power envelope. This level of on-board processing is intended to enable more advanced AI models for vehicle perception, dynamics and in-car assistants without relying on cloud computing.
“Mythic’s cutting-edge analog compute technology makes them a strategic partner for Honda as we develop the next generation of intelligent, safe vehicles,” said Atsushi Ogawa, chief operating officer at Honda R&D Co., Ltd., in a statement.
The initiative aligns with Honda’s global “Safety for Everyone” vision, which targets zero traffic collision fatalities involving its vehicles by 2050. It also supports the company’s carbon neutrality objectives by reducing the energy demands of vehicle computing.
“Digital computing architectures simply cannot meet the combined performance and power-efficiency requirements of safe autonomous driving – but Mythic’s analog technology can,” said Taner Ozcelik, CEO of Mythic and former founder of NVIDIA’s Automotive Division.
Dave Fick, co-founder and chief technology officer of Mythic, likened the evolution to cars becoming “petascale supercomputers on wheels.”
Initial prototype chips from the collaboration are expected to be tested in vehicles by the late 2020s, with production slated after successful trials. Honda is consistently among the world’s top 10 automakers by sales volume.
Mythic recently closed a $125 million funding round led by investors including DCVC, NEA, SoftBank, Future Ventures and Honda.