Shanghai (ZXZC)- FAW Group and Black Sesame Technologies (BST) signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Changchun, Jilin on 30, December to collaborate on autonomous driving chips, visual perception algorithms and data, etc. to enhance the mass-production application of self-driving technologies to FAW’s models.      

BST launched Huashan series chip at the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference. Huashan No.1 chip is able to surpass the industry's leading company Mobileye’s EyeQ4 technology in terms of the key performance indicators such as computing power, its utilization rate and energy efficiency ratio. As for the No.2 chip, a single one is capable of supporting the L3 autonomous driving, while the multi-chip interconnect FAD board has a computing power up to 160T, able to back L4 driving.     

Committed to innovation, the two parties will join hands to master core technologies with independent intellectual property rights. In the future, both sides will build vehicles for AI image data collection under various weather environments and scenarios.

Founded in 2016, BST, based in Silicon Valley and Shanghai, specializes in algorithms in autonomous driving, smart phones and other consumer electronics. It has set up offices and R&D centers in Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chengdu, Singapore and other regions. The AI digital imaging technology firm supplies solutions to image processing and computing images, as well as embedded sensing platforms.  

BST’s automotive-grade chip with its core IPs developed from 2016, taping out in 2019, is expected to be mass produced in 2020. Besides, the startup has completed three rounds of financing. The latest round, roughly $100 million was raised in April, 2019 (photo source: BST).