CES 2020 – Welcome to the Roaring 20’s - 4/7
Updated: Feb 24, 2023
Patrick Little, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm’s automotive business, said the company is using the expertise it built in the mobile phone processor business developing powerful processors that consume little electricity and generate little heat:
Qualcomm’s new computers can fit in one hand and do not need fans or liquid cooling systems to prevent them from overheating.
Lower power consumption will become important in electric vehicles, in which computers will have to compete with the drive train for battery power. “Many of these cars have a supercomputer in the back. It looks like your kid’s gaming PC”.
Qualcomm and General Motors Co also said that the automaker has expanded its existing partnership with the chip suppler into “high performance compute platforms.” Qualcomm previously provided chips for the company’s dashboard electronics, location tracking and driver-assistance systems.
Non-traditional auto names were also making a case for their presence in the field:
Sony unveiled the Vision-S, a prototype smart car. Designed to showcase Sony’s expertise in providing a ‘Safety Cocoon’ using its sensor technology, the vehicle has 33 sensors located on the interior and exterior for providing driving assistance and monitoring the well-being of the car's passengers
Amazon’s booth in the auto area was touting home-to-car integrations with Alexa and Ring, in-car Alexa voice features, and with AWS services that can help automakers and car dealers bring more technology to the car purchase process. AWS is also working with BlackBerry to build a cloud-powered connected vehicle software platform for in-vehicle applications and working with Unity Technologies on a new cloud service to “test, train, and validate an autonomous perception system.”
Auto OEMs such as Hyundai has ventured into aerospace – it showed a full-size mock-up of their air taxi prototype SA-1 developed with Uber, as it aims to diversify. Core aerospace manufacturers are also in the game, with Bell showing their mock-up of the Nexus 4EX which is now due for production in 2020.