China's Baidu has recently announced "ERNIE Bot", an AI product that uses the second generation Kunlun AI chips. Baidu is not only focusing on AI chip design but also on autonomous driving with Kunlun chips. Chinese automaker BYD recently invested in Kunlun to expand its plans for high-end autonomous cars (AV).
Baidu's smart-chip and architecture department concluded its independent fundraising in 2021 and established Kunlun Xin, (Kunlun Semiconductor). Baidu holds 70.87% of the company's largest stake. Baidu's core R&D team, led by Kunlun Xin, was involved in AI architecture computing back in 2011.
Kunlun's AI chip has had two iterations as of now. Kunlun Gen 1 already has deployed more than 20,000 units in businesses such as Baidu's search engine or the DuerOS. Kunlun Gen 2 was also mass-produced in August 2021. It was also included in the ERNIE deep-learning model.
The core of Baidu's Apollo software platform is the Kunlun chip family, which allows for autonomous driving. Baidu partners in the automotive, AV, and other sectors can access the Apollo software platform. The "Perception 2.0" architecture of the ERNIE model was used to build the system.
Kunlun Gen 2 was already applied to the driving system for Baidu's self-driving vehicle RoboTaxi. Sources claim that the chip was manufactured using the 7nm process. The memory bandwidth can reach 512GB/s when equipped with a GDDR6 fast VRAM. It is built on the latest Kunlun XPU R architecture.
Ouyang Jian once stated in a speech that future in-vehicle computing systems must be open. It can offer users a computing system with high computing power and high flexibility, while also being able to satisfy clients' specific requirements. Kunlun Xin plans to design a high-performance automotive SoC that targets high-end AVs in the future.
The GM of Baidu's intelligent cloud computing solutions and Operations director Song Fei, as well as Song Chunxiao, the strategic director of Kunlun Xin, spoke out to say that the third generation of Kunlun chips would be in mass production by early 2024. It will also be built on the XPU R architecture.
It is worth noting, however, that BYD recently invested CNY58,000 (US$8420.56), in Kunlun Xin. This amounted to acquiring approximately 0.3% of the shares. Although the investment amount was small, it is indicative of BYD's plans to expand its activities in the field of AVs.
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