Samsung to build autonomous driving chip for Google's Waymo: Report

Technology company Samsung Electronics has recently won a project to develop chips for the next-generation self-driving cars for Google parent Alphabet's autonomous driving unit Waymo, as per a report by South Korean local media.

Samsung will build a chip that has the ability to compute data collected from various sensors installed in autonomous vehicles or centrally control functions by exchanging information with Google data centres in real time, according to the Herald Business.

The chip-making contract will be executed by Samsung's logic chip development division System LSI's Custom SOC Business Team.

As Alphabet is advancing with its self-driving car project Waymo, one of the well-funded companies racing to commercialize autonomous vehicle technology, recently announced someits achievements. The company said that its technology has the ability to avoid fatal crashes. In most of the set of virtually recreated fatal accidents, Waymo was able to avoid or mitigate the crashes, the company said.

The autonomous driving company added that this is the first time an autonomous startup had shared data on how its system might perform in real-world fatal crashes.

The auto industry is moving closer ti its autonomous driving dreams with various tech and auto companies investing in self-driving projects. General Motors' Cruise and Amazon’s Zoox are also working on their robotaxi fleets using their own proprietary autonomous cars. They have also been conducting hundreds of thousands of miles of testing on public roads each year.

Waymo, however, is seen as a front-runner as it has already begun a small-scale autonomous ride-hail service based on its 'Driver' sensors and software in Chandler, Arizona. Earlier, the company's director of safety research and best practices, Trent Victor, had said in a blog post, “We believe we have an opportunity to improve road safety by replacing the human driver with the Waymo Driver."