Pretty much everyone out there has to admit that cars have evolved a lot over the past couple of years, the most recent (and most advanced) models delivering a very large number of enhanced features and functions, especially in the field of infotainment solutions. Naturally, such advancements are not possible without the involvement of more powerful in-car computing solutions, one of the most famous deals in this field being announced by NVIDIA and Audi back at CES 2010.

Following the establishment of the respective collaboration, the new Audi 2010 product line will incorporate NVIDIA GPUs (Tegra platform) to process and generate all visual imagery. But it seems that NVIDIA's not going to stop here, the company's plans regarding the automotive industry being much more diverse, as Luciano Alibrandi, Director of Public Relations for NVIDIA, EMEA Region, revealed during a recent open-talk with Softpedia.

Before talking about NVIDIA's future plans regarding the car segment, we'll quickly remind you what the whole Audi thing was all about. So, the 2010 Audi product line comes with a built-in navigation system that features 3D topography of buildings and cities, and real-time traffic reporting and navigation information. This system can recognize complex scenarios and make anticipatory decisions to assist the driver, enhancing their ability to drive more safely.

In addition, NVIDIA worked with Audi to develop a complete multimedia engine called Vibrante that serves as the media backbone of 3G MMI. The Vibrante multimedia engine allows Audi passengers to watch DVDs; listen to music from an iPod, CD, SD card or USB memory stick; and enjoy online video content. The Vibrante engine also supports “dual zone” entertainment with a single GPU, enabling passengers to simultaneously enjoy two different movies on two different screens on the backseat monitors.

Now, during our talk with Mr. Alibrandi, we managed to uncover some pretty interesting pieces of information. So, first of all, it seems that, by 2012, the aforementioned collaboration will extend to other cars from the Volkswagen group (who is Audi's major shareholder), but NVIDIA is also working with other car manufacturers for the development of similar solutions. Naturally, Mr. Alibrandi refrained from providing any names, but we're most likely talking about some of the most important players in this field.

NVIDIA is also quite confident that this market will grow even further in the future, as more and more car manufacturers implement digital displays within their vehicles, the respective displays requiring some pretty serious GPUs in order to work, which is exactly where Tegra (and it successors) come into play, since, after all, NVIDIA's best at “pushing pixels,” as Mr. Alibrandi said.

Another idea pointed out by NVIDIA's rep was related to the fact that the GPU manufacturer is actually involved in pretty much all of a car's design stages, especially as far as the design and rendering are concerned (after all, car engineers and designers make good use of powerful modeling software applications, most of which can easily leverage the potential of NVIDIA's GPUs).

Furthermore, car safety is another important issue where NVIDIA's technology will come into play, because the company's apparently working on developing car-oriented, GPU-based platforms that will make vehicles a lot more intelligent, helping them actually assess risks and prompt the driver to take some sort of action (or, who knows, maybe act themselves in order to prevent an accident or minimize its impact and effects).

The conclusion is that we'll be hearing a lot more about NVIDIA's involvement in the car industry in the future, and we're still waiting for the first manufacturer whose car will feature somewhere on its chassis a small “Powered by NVIDIA” sign.


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