Continental and edge AI company Ambarella are to jointly develop new AI-based hardware and software for assisted and automated driving, with autonomous mobility as the ultimate goal. The collaboration builds on Continental’s November decision to integrate Ambarella’s SoC family into its ADAS system.

Ambarella’s “CV3-AD” chip family is designed to provide high performance to process sensor data faster and more comprehensively for greater environmental perception and safer mobility, at up to five times higher power efficiency compared to existing peers.

The two companies are combining Continental’s automotive systems portfolio with Ambarella’s computer vision SoCs and software modules. In addition to the development of camera-based perception solutions for ADAS, Continental and Ambarella are focusing on scalable full-stack systems for Level 2+ up to highly automated vehicles.

These full-stack solutions take a multi-sensor approach, including Continental’s high-resolution cameras, radars and lidars, as well as the associated control units and the required software. Vehicle manufacturers will be able to integrate flexibly the joint system solutions into their latest vehicle generations.

According to a statement, the energy-efficient solutions will reduce power consumption and cooling demands in electric vehicles, contributing to a lower battery weight of several kilograms (estimated 6 pounds). This will result in an increased average range of about 5-10 kilometres (3-6 miles) with the same battery capacity, based on a typical configuration.

The partners aim to have these joint solutions ready for global series production in 2026, which they anticipate will pave the way for autonomous mobility.

“We are now able to offer full-stack, scalable vehicle system solutions with the highest performance, from ADAS to high automation, thereby strengthening our leadership position in assisted and automated driving,” said Frank Petznick, Head of the Autonomous Mobility Business Area at Continental. “This strategic partnership with Ambarella is further expanding our broad portfolio and taking us a step closer towards Vision Zero and autonomous mobility.”

“The automotive industry can now take full advantage of Ambarella’s algorithm-first SoC architectures and software IP, in combination with Continental’s global scale and proven track record in commercialising technology for the ADAS and automated mobility markets,” said Fermi Wang, President and CEO of Ambarella. “Together with our partner Continental, we are offering vehicle manufacturers a compelling new option for making vehicles safer, while bringing the promise of advanced automation to fruition and building toward autonomous driving.”

Continental’s portfolio, extended with Ambarella’s CV3-AD System-on-Chip family, will draw upon its sensor technologies, cross- and domain-specific high-performance computing systems, and software development. Continental also plans to tap into its software and development ecosystem to offer additional upward scalability in its ADAS full-stack offerings, which are based on Ambarella’s CVflow SoCs with AI.

Continental will contribute the hardware and large parts of the software to this partnership, while Ambarella provides the SoC platform and further software functionalities. The two companies anticipate that the next generation of vehicles, ranging from L2+ to the highest automation levels, will be able to utilise more powerful, energy-efficient, and scalable mobility system solutions from Continental and Ambarella.

Ambarella’s CV3-AD AI domain controller SoC family enables centralised, single-chip processing for multi-sensor perception—including high-resolution camera, radar, ultrasonic sensors and lidar—as well as deep fusion of these sensors and autonomous vehicle path planning. The company’s SoCs are designed to be scalable, power-efficient, and provide AI performance per watt for neural network computation, with up to 40x better performance than Ambarella’s CV2 automotive SoC family. Ambarella also integrates image signal processor technology into all of its SoCs, providing ADAS and L2+ 4 to Level automated driving systems designed for greater levels of environmental perception in challenging lighting, weather and driving conditions for human vision and edge AI applications.