On December 12, international media outlets reported that Rivian, the American electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer often dubbed "Tesla's Competitor," is forging ahead with its in-house development of artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The goal is to eventually supplant NVIDIA's technology as Rivian strives to integrate and bolster autonomous driving features in its future vehicle lineup.

Rivian has set its sights on outfitting its forthcoming R2 sports utility vehicle (SUV) with its proprietary Rivian Autonomous Driving Processor chip (RAP1), alongside a cutting-edge LiDAR sensor. These chips are slated for production by TSMC, a leading semiconductor manufacturer. The concurrent development of novel sensors and AI models is poised to propel Rivian toward the realization of full autonomous driving capabilities.

It has been revealed that the new-generation in-vehicle computer in Rivian's vehicles, dubbed the Autonomy Compute Module 3, will be powered by two RAP1 chips. This setup is capable of processing a staggering 5 billion pixels per second, marking a fourfold increase in performance compared to the NVIDIA system currently employed in Rivian's existing models.