Backed by General Motors, Renault, Bosh, Continental, and co.
Automotive plays a vital role in the Nuvia deal. Nuvia has a data center chip that comes tape out first, but what works in a data center can quickly be turned into an automotive chip. An Automotive / self-driving chip is nothing but a data center on wheels designed to be power-aware and process tremendous amounts of data from multiple sensors.
This data needs to be processed on the vehicle in real-time, and only a small amount of data will end up sent and shared via a 5G connection.
General motors
General Motors feels cozy to back up Qualcomm as its automotive partner as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Automotive is substantial competition in the self-driving arena. General motors shared that it wants to continue to work together to deliver advanced in-vehicle services and technologies.
The quote can be targeting infotainment, self-driving, telematics, or connectivity angle. Considering that Qualcomm already has the connectivity part sorted out with General Motors, it is safe to assume that General motors prise the future Nuvia based high-performance, low power cores for the self-driving, telematics, and infotainment.
General Motors is one of the most prominent players, especially in the US market, and it is a great asset to have for the future of the automotive roadmap at Qualcomm.
Renault
French car brent well known in most parts of the world, but the US is a big player to back up this acquisition. The choice of words „world class in-vehicle services and experiences” implicates that Renault is after the infotainment and will benefit from the better infotainment SKU, possibly based on Nuvia cores in addition to a 5G connectivity where Qualcomm plays a crucial role. It doesn’t mean that Renault might not use Snapdragon Automotive, but it is not clear from this simple quote.
Continental and Bosch
Continental and Bosch are Automotive industry suppliers and prepare a solution for automotive OEMs. They save a lot of time and resources for the automotive manufacturers and sell them a complete solution of infotainment or a self-driving platform. That is where both will play heavily and supply Snapdragon Automotive powered by Nuvia cores in the future.
LG Electronic / Panasonic / Sharp
Again a car Original Design Manufacturers that create solutions for the car manufacturers. Better the CPU / GPU cores and power envelope, the higher the benefit for them.
Qualcomm gained a lot of infotainment, connectivity, and telematics business in recent years. A year ago, it announced that its automotive business unit is $6.5 billion automotive business in the pipeline.