Valeo and Renesas - Incredible partnerships for Brainchip, page-6

2020 Agreement signed - Imagine what has been developed now in 2023
Artificial intelligence device company BrainChip Holdings (ASX: BRN) has taken an affirmative step towards integrating its Akida neuromorphic chip into autonomous vehicles after signing a binding joint development agreement with European automotive supplier Valeo Corporation.

The agreement means both companies will collaborate to develop anew wave of tech solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI) and reducedpower consumption within the overarching theme of miniaturisation that’s takingthe tech industry by storm.

According to BrainChip, the Akida chip is a neural networkingprocessor that “brings artificial intelligence to the edge” above and beyondwhat existing technologies can do.

The company said its Akida solution is high-performance, small,ultra-low power and enables a wide array of edge capabilities that includecontinuous learning and inference.

In April this year, BrainChip introduced its first event-basedneural-network intellectual property and neuromorphic system-on-chip (SoC)device – the AKD1000 – which enables AI capability in edge AI systems at ultra-lowpower consumption.

Alongside AKD1000, the Akida neural processor represents thenext generation of AI that canto overcome the limitations of legacy AI chips,which require too much power and bandwidth to handle the needs of today’sapplications. Moreover, Akida is expected to move the technology forward in asignificant leap, allowing AI to do more with less.

“Our AKD1000 is able to deliver the portability, connectivityand processing power needed for AI edge applications without retraining theentire network,” BrainChip chief development officer Anil Mankar said.

Development agreement

This latest agreement between BrainChip and Valeo has beenhailed as a validation of the company’s Akida device by a Tier-1 sensorsupplier and “considered to be a significant development”, according toBrainChip.

In a statement to the market this morning, BrainChip said Valeowill utilise Akida and collaborate on the development of neural networkprocessing solutions, for integration in autonomous vehicles (AVs).

The terms of the deal stipulate that both companies must reachspecific performance milestones, with BrainChip stating it expects to receivepayments to cover its expenses, subject to the completion of, as yet,undisclosed milestones.

The dawn of Akida

As part of the ongoing design of driver assistance systems andAVs, the issue of timely data processing is paramount.

Accurate real-time data processing is essential for AVs to bedeemed safe and reliable; however, the amount of data being generated continuesto increase exponentially, thereby making efficient data processing elusive andproblematic.

BrainChip is hoping to reconcile the need for greater processingability with greater amounts of data by developing what it calls “neuromorphic”technology that can handle more data quicker while using less power thanexisting components.

Neuromorphic engineering was first developed by US scientistCarver Mead in the 1980s and refers to the use of very-large-scale integration(VLSI) systems containing electronic analogue circuits to mimicneuro-biological architectures present in the nervous system.

According to BrainChip, by combining the Akida neural networkprocessor with sensors, the resulting system can achieve ultra-low power,minimum latency, maximum reliability and incremental learning.

“This is a major advancement over current architectures whichrequire large amounts of data to be transmitted to a CPU or GPU, which has theburden of processing all data from all sensors and then combining the resultsto make a decision or retrain the network for new classifiers,” the companysaid.