Alphabet (GOOGL.US) subsidiary self-driving company Waymo officially begins mass production of self-developed chips, with performance on par with NVIDIA (NVDA.US) latest systems

Waymo, the autonomous driving company under Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOG.US, GOOGL.US), is further strengthening its control over core hardware technology.

According to Zhitong Finance APP, Waymo announced on Thursday that it has independently developed a dedicated ASIC chip for autonomous driving, which has been put into production for the latest generation of Robotaxis. This move is expected to enhance the computing and response capabilities of autonomous vehicles while reducing reliance on third-party chip suppliers such as NVIDIA (NVDA.US).

ASIC, or Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, is a chip designed for specific applications. Waymo stated that combining its self-developed chips with hardware such as sensors can improve the response speed and navigation capabilities of Robotaxis in complex urban road environments.

In the past, Waymo primarily used chips from companies like NVIDIA and AMD (AMD.US) and integrated them into its self-designed computing systems. With the introduction of dedicated chips, Waymo can process the vast amounts of data collected by vehicle sensors more quickly and run AI models used to recognize and understand the surrounding environment, thereby helping Robotaxis make driving decisions more swiftly.

Waymo stated that the new chip has a computing power exceeding 1000 TOPS, meaning it can perform over one trillion operations per second. Based on this metric, the performance of Waymo's self-developed chip is already comparable to NVIDIA's latest generation of autonomous driving systems.

In terms of manufacturing, this chip is produced using TSMC's (TSM.US) 5-nanometer process. Although 5-nanometer is no longer TSMC's most advanced manufacturing technology, it is still widely used by many large tech companies for high-performance chip production.

The development of this self-developed chip also signifies that Waymo is gradually shifting from primarily retrofitting existing vehicles for autonomous driving to a more in-depth integrated design of software and hardware tailored to the needs of Robotaxis. Waymo believes that this model may not only reduce vehicle costs but also provide passengers with a more spacious and convenient riding experience.

Currently, Waymo is the leading company in the U.S. Robotaxi market, offering autonomous driving services in cities such as San Francisco, Phoenix, and Atlanta, surpassing competitors like Tesla (TSLA.US) and Amazon's (AMZN.US) Zoox.

Waymo's previous fleet mainly used Jaguar vehicles, equipped with autonomous driving technology and chips provided by third-party suppliers. However, the company has recently launched a Robotaxi model developed in collaboration with Chinese automaker Geely's ZEEKR, which is currently equipped with Waymo's latest self-developed chip.

As Waymo advances its chip development, its parent company Alphabet is also strengthening its custom chip layout on a larger scale. With the rapid rise in the cost of building AI infrastructure, Google is increasing its control over core computing hardware and costs by expanding the scale of its self-developed chips.

For Waymo, self-developed ASICs not only mean further improvements in the performance of autonomous driving systems but also a more diversified source of chip supply. As competition in the Robotaxi market continues to heat up, deeper vertical integration of core technologies such as chips, sensors, and AI software is expected to be an important step for Waymo to expand its autonomous driving service scale and control operational costs