TechCrunch Mobility: The custom chip driving Waymo’s robotaxi ambitions

Key Facts

• Fact 1: The company shared this week that it built a custom silicon chip — specifically a 5 nm ASIC chip, which is designed to handle the massive influx of raw data before it reaches the core “brain” of the self-driving system.
• Fact 2: (To get a sense of how much data, consider that the Waymo Ojai has 13 high-fidelity cameras.) Waymo said the chip delivers more than 1,000 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of computing performance, a statistic that puts it roughly in the same performance range as Nvidia’s latest DRIVE AGX Thor automotive processor, a powerful computer designed for automated driving applications.
• Fact 3: Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com.
• Fact 4: Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Also, the startup incubated within Rivian, has raised another $150 million in a Series D round led by Prysm Capital with participation from existing backers Eclipse, Greenoaks, and MVP Ventures.