Chinese electric SUV maker Li Auto has become the first carmaker to adopt NVIDIA’s new autonomous driving Orin SoC. The chip will be incorporated into Li’s full size extended range electric SUV which will launch in 2022. The Orin can reach 200 trillion operations per second, seven times faster than the previous generation Xavier SoC, and will enable Level 4 autonomous driving.

The adoption of the new chip is part of a three way partnership between Li Auto, NVIDIA, and NVIDIA’s Chinese partner, Huizhou Desay SV Automotive.

The NVIDIA Orin SoC was released in 2019 and is scheduled to be in production in 2022. Orin uses a 7-nanometer production process to achieve a computing power of 200 TOPS. Orin’s baseline power consumption is 45 watts, relatively equivalent to the low power consumption of the previous generation SoC.

Li Auto will provide end users with upgradeable solutions, ranging from L2+ autonomous driving with a single Orin chip and 200 TOPS in computing power, to L4 with dual Orin chips and 400 TOPS in computing power. In the future, the use of discrete GPU can further increase the computing power up to 2000 TOPS theoretically, which provides sufficient hardware capabilities for L5 autonomous driving.

Desay SV will build on the Orin SoC, and provide an autonomous driving domain controller. Building on this, Li Auto will develop all autonomous driving program design and algorithms, aiming to become the first new energy vehicle company to independently develop L4 autonomous driving systems in China.

Kai Wang, chief technology officer of Li Auto, said, “We look forward to cooperating with NVIDIA and Desay SV, leveraging our respective strengths to provide users with a safer and more convenient autonomous driving experience. As one of the emerging powers in China’s new energy vehicle market, Li Auto plans to further increase its research and development investment in autonomous driving, while building the Company’s vehicles on a solid hardware base by adopting NVIDIA’s next generation SoC for autonomous driving – Orin. The in-depth cooperation with NVIDIA and Desay SV will also help us accelerate our development in the field of autonomous driving.”

Rishi Dhall, vice president of automotive business development of NVIDIA, said, “Our next generation of autonomous driving SoC, Orin, has achieved significant improvement both in its computing power and energy efficiency. Through close cooperation with companies such as Li Auto and Desay SV, we aim to bring all new AI-based autonomous driving functions to the new energy vehicles in China and around the world.”

Dapeng Gao, chief executive officer of Desay SV commented, “As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, we are collaborating with the industry’s best partners in order to participate in the evolution of autonomous driving and providing smart mobility solutions for our customers. We are excited to once again cooperate with NVIDIA and work with Li Auto. As we develop an autonomous driving system based on Orin’s superior computing power, we will be able to bring an innovative driving experience to Li Auto’s next generation vehicles, assisting Li Auto to develop smart vehicles and promoting intelligent technologies for the automotive industry.”