Nvidia has been busy researching technologies that will improve its future GPUs, but that has not stopped the company from seeking alliances that will help it expand in important foreign markets. To that end, Nvidia has announced a broad partnership with Baidu, China"s biggest internet search company, that will see the two work together to boost adoption of AI in China in areas such as cloud computing, self-driving cars, and digital assistants.
Baidu will deploy Nvidia’s next-generation Volta GPUs in its data centers, to be harnessed by the company’s open source PaddlePaddle deep learning framework and NVIDIA"s TensorRT deep learning inference software. Researchers and companies will be able to take advantage of the platform"s state-of-the-art technology in order to develop AI products and services.
Aiming to have autonomous cars driving on Chinese roads as soon as possible, the internet giant has selected Nvidia’s Drive PX 2 platform for its autonomous vehicle initiative known as Apollo. Several other Chinese car manufacturers, including Changan, Chery Automobile, FAW, and Greatwall Motor also announced that they will join the Apollo alliance.
Finally, Nvidia will leverage Baidu’s DuerOS, the company’s digital personal assistant, to provide voice control capabilities to the Shield TV in the Chinese market.
Source: Nvidia