Honda and Mythic Announce Joint Development of 100x Energy-Efficient Analog AI Chip for Next-Generation Vehicles

Honda and Mythic Announce Joint Development of 100x Energy-Efficient Analog AI Chip for Next-Generation Vehicles

Mythic’s analog compute-in-memory architecture to deliver 100x energy efficiency, targeting 100,000+ TOPS of AI performance for safer, smarter vehicles under Honda’s “Carbon Neutral” and “Zero Traffic Fatalities” environmental and safety vision.

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Honda Motor Co., Ltd. and Mythic announce a joint development agreement in which Honda R&D Co. Ltd., the R&D subsidiary of Honda, will license Mythic’s Analog Processing Unit (APU) technology and the companies will co-develop an automotive-grade AI SOC for deployment in Honda’s next-generation software-defined vehicles (SDVs) by the late 2020s/early 2030s. In line with Honda’s safety approach, Mythic’s intelligent, ultra-efficient analog compute-in-memory architecture will enable advanced driver-assist and autonomous features. The goal is to dramatically boost on-board AI capabilities while minimizing power draw – a critical factor as Honda pursues its global goal of zero traffic collision fatalities involving Honda motorcycles and automobiles by 2050.

Atsushi Ogawa, Chief Operating Officer at Honda R&D Co., Ltd, said:

Mythic’s cutting-edge analog compute technology makes them a strategic partner for Honda as we develop the next generation of intelligent, safe vehicles,

“We are excited to collaborate with Mythic on the future of automotive computing. This relationship will continue to grow as we jointly develop, test & integrate Mythic’s unique capabilities across our future vehicle lineup, supporting Honda’s commitments to safety and innovation.”

Vehicles are fundamentally power-limited systems, so achieving leap-ahead AI performance requires unprecedented energy efficiency. Mythic’s analog compute-in-memory technology delivers about 100x better energy efficiency than conventional digital AI chips by combining memory and computation into one layer, much like the human brain. This efficiency advantage translates into roughly 100x more AI processing within the same power budget. The joint development envisions future vehicles with over 100,000 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of AI compute – a level of performance within a strict low power envelope that only neuromorphic architectures like Mythic’s APU can achieve.

Dave Fick, Co-Founder and CTO of Mythic, said:

Cars are quickly becoming petascale supercomputers on wheels – in the near future, the most powerful computer in your home will be parked in your garage

“Vehicles will soon require computing performance on par with data centers, but with far tighter energy budgets. That’s exactly what Mythic’s analog technology delivers. We’re thrilled to partner with Honda to usher in a new era of energy-efficient automotive computing, where every vehicle can have the AI brainpower of a data center, without the power draw.”

The new AI system-on-chip (SoC) will be capable of running state-of-the-art machine learning models to make Honda’s vehicles smarter and safer. These range from vision transformers for perceptive awareness, to physics-informed neural networks for vehicle dynamics and control, to cloud-free large language models for in-car assistants.

Taner Ozcelik, CEO of Mythic, and former Founder of NVIDIA’s Automotive Division, said:

Digital computing architectures simply cannot meet the combined performance and power-efficiency requirements of safe autonomous driving – but Mythic’s analog technology can

“Much as GPUs transformed computing by accelerating AI next to CPUs, Mythic’s incredibly energy-efficient APUs will be the accelerators that democratize full self-driving across all vehicles. We are the only company delivering a computing architecture with the efficiency needed to enable the level of AI intelligence that truly safe autonomous vehicles demand for everyone.”

Initial prototype chips from the Honda-Mythic collaboration are expected to be tested in vehicles by the late 2020s/early 2030s, with the jointly developed analog AI SoC slated to enter production shortly after completing successful trials. Honda is consistently one of the top 10 car manufacturers worldwide by sales volume. For Mythic, fresh off a $125M funding round led by prominent deep-tech investors including DCVC, NEA, SoftBank, and Future Ventures, as well as Honda, the partnership represents a significant step in bringing its breakthrough analog AI processors to one of the world’s largest automotive OEMs, in one of the company’s focus markets. Both companies envision this collaboration accelerating the realization of Honda’s “Safety for Everyone” mission and setting a new benchmark for on-board AI performance-per-watt and performance-per-watt-per-cost in the automotive industry.

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Honda and Mythic Announce Joint Development of 100x Energy-Efficient Analog AI Chip for Next-Generation Vehicles, source