Japanese Startup Turing Inc Secures AMD Backing to Challenge Nvidia in Self-Driving Race

Japan's Turing takes AMD backing for self-driving

Turing Inc., a five-year-old Japanese self-driving startup, has taken investment from AMD Ventures and moved some of its AI training onto AMD chips, chasing lower costs as it targets consumer cars and robotaxis by 2028. Nvidia powers almost every self-driving car project going. A small Japanese startup is quietly handing some of that work to AMD instead. Turing Inc. has added AMD Ventures to its backers and started running its AI on AMD chips, Bloomberg reported. The five-year-old Tokyo firm wants to put self-driving software in consumer cars and robotaxis by 2028. To get there affordably, it is loosening its reliance on Nvidia. Why AMD, why now Turing built its systems on Nvidia hardware from the start. That is the default across the industry. Now about 10 per cent of its AI training runs on AMD graphics chips instead. AMD sits just down the road from Nvidia in Santa Clara, and it offered two things Turing wanted: a second supplier, and lower costs. It joins a wider industry hunt for alternatives to Nvidia's chips. Cost is the whole point. Self-driving devours capital, and cheaper compute gives a small player one lever it can actually pull. AMD Ventures also joined the cap table, though neither side said how much it invested. AMD is making the same bet elsewhere. It recently backed UK self-driving firm Wayve too. Late, but cheaper Turing is not first to market, and it knows it. "We may look like we're late to the game, but we'll make it work and we'll do so more cost-effectively," said chief financial officer Masato Morishima. He argued the delay matters little, since new car models run on three-to-five-year cycles. "Technology adoption will likely be extremely gradual," he added. The competition is not waiting. A partnership between Nissan, Wayve and Uber plans a pilot robotaxi service in Tokyo by the end of this year. US firm Nuro and others are testing on Japanese streets too. Turing has run its own trials, starting with a 30-minute drive outside Tokyo last year, then repeating it in busier areas. A national bet The money is modest by industry standards. Turing raised $79m in an equity and debt extension to the Series A it closed last year, valuing the company at about $600m. That is a fraction of what rivals across Asia have raised, or what Western robotaxi hopefuls command. For co-founder and CEO Issei Yamamoto, the stakes are bigger than one company. "Autos is a very important industry in Japan. If Japan ends up losing this industry, we won't have anything to export," he said. Autonomous driving, he argued, will decide who wins the next era of carmaking. Cheaper chips are how a Japanese underdog plans to stay in the race. And for AMD, every design win it prises from Nvidia counts as a victory.

Self-driving startup Turing gets AMD backing and adopts AMD GPUs

Self-driving tech developer Turing has added AMD Ventures to its list of backers and begun adopting Advanced Micro Devices' AI accelerators in its systems. The five-year-old Japanese startup is adding to its capabilities as it builds toward a commercial launch. Reliant on Nvidia hardware for AI training and inferencing since its outset, Turing now handles roughly 10% of its AI training needs with AMD graphics processing units, company executives said in an interview. AMD, headquartered a stone's throw away from Nvidia in Santa Clara, California, presented a good chance to diversify supply and achieve lower costs, the executives said. "We've made notable progress with the technology. There's a lot more we can show to potential auto partners," Masato Morishima, Turing's chief financial officer, said. "We need to focus our efforts more on the business aspect." The startup aims to offer its software on the consumer market and in driverless robotaxis as early as 2028. The decision to use AMD graphics processors is part of an effort to ensure price competitiveness in the capital-intensive autonomous driving arena. A major competitor preparing to launch in the domestic Japanese market is a partnership between Nissan Motor, U.K.-based AI startup Wayve Technologies and Uber Technologies, which plans a pilot self-driving taxi service in Tokyo by the end of this year. After conducting a 30-minute test drive in the outskirts of the capital last year, Turing has replicated the experiment in multiple, more congested areas across the country. The startup's executives say their lag to enter the market is unlikely to make a meaningful difference, given new car models typically follow a three- to five-year product cycle. "Technology adoption will likely be extremely gradual," Morishima said. "We may look like we're late to the game, but we'll make it work and we'll do so more cost-effectively." Turing raised $79 million in an equity and debt extension to the Series A round it closed last year, the startup said. It didn't specify how much AMD Ventures put in. The company was valued at about $600 million following the extension round, according to people familiar with the matter. "Autos is a very important industry in Japan. If Japan ends up losing this industry, we won't have anything to export. And autonomous driving will be a key factor for the future," Turing co-founder and CEO Issei Yamamoto said. "We're the ones with the most advanced tech in this field, at least here in Japan."