Thursday, September 29, 2016

So, What's New With NVIDIA? (NVDA)

The stock set new all time highs Tuesday, yesterday and again this morning.
$66.59 -0.19, last.
Here are a couple September 28 pieces from Investor's Business Daily:

Nvidia Debuts New AI Supercomputer Chip For Self-Driving Cars
Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang introduces Xavier, a new AI supercomputer chip, designed for use in self-driving cars. (Nvidia)
 Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang introduces Xavier, a new AI supercomputer chip, designed for use in self-driving cars. (Nvidia)
Graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) on Wednesday introduced a new artificial-intelligence supercomputer chip, called Xavier, which is designed for self-driving cars. 
Xavier is a system-on-chip (SoC) that integrates a new GPU (graphics processing unit) architecture called Volta, a custom 8-core CPU (central processing unit) architecture, and a new computer vision accelerator. The processor will deliver 20 trillion operations per second of performance, while consuming just 20 watts of power, Nvidia said.

IBD'S TAKE: Nvidia stock has a best-possible IBD Composite Rating of 99, meaning it has outperformed 99% of stocks in key metrics over the past 12 months. To learn more about Nvidia, check out the IBD Stock Checkup.

"Because autonomous driving is an incredibly compute-intense process, the need for an efficient AI processor is paramount," Nvidia said in a blog post. "Xavier will bring self-driving car technology to automakers, tier 1 suppliers, startups and R&D organizations that are building autonomous vehicles, whether cars, trucks, shuttles or taxis." 
Nvidia expects to make Xavier samples available in the fourth quarter of 2017 to automakers and other groups developing self-driving cars. 
Nvidia already works with such automakers as Audi, BMW, Honda (HMC), Mercedes-Benz, Telsa Motors (TSLA) and Volvo, providing technology for infotainment, navigation, digital instrument clusters and advanced driver-assistance systems. 
On Aug. 31, Nvidia and China's Baidu (BIDU) announced a partnership to make an autonomous car platform....MORE
And:

Nvidia Could Provide Graphics Chips For Apple Mac Computers
A job listing at graphics chipmaker Nvidia indicates that the company is developing processors for upcoming Apple products. (Nvidia)
 A job listing at graphics chipmaker Nvidia indicates that the company is developing processors for upcoming Apple products. (Nvidia)
A job listing at graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) indicates that the company is developing processors for upcoming Apple (AAPL) products.

The listing points to Nvidia getting its chips in future Mac computers, where they haven't been for several generations of machines, Bloomberg and BGR reported. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) currently provides graphics chips for Mac desktop and laptop computers.

IBD'S TAKE: Nvidia stock is the top-ranked company in IBD's Electronics-Semiconductor Fabless industry group. It also is No. 7 on the IBD 50 list of superior stocks.

A job listing for a software engineer at Nvidia said the successful applicant will "help produce the next revolutionary Apple products," Bloomberg reported. The job will require "working in partnership with Apple" and writing code that will "define and shape the future"' of graphics-related software on Macs. 
Apple is expected to unveil new Mac computers next month. But the Apple-Nvidia products likely won't arrive this year, BGR said.

Another area in which Nvidia hopes to dethrone AMD, besides Mac computers, is video game consoles. AMD supplies chips for Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox One and Sony's (SNE) PlayStation 4 consoles. 
Nvidia reportedly is providing the main processor for Nintendo's (NTDOY) upcoming NX game console. Nintendo's current Wii U console gets its main processor from IBM (IBM) and a graphics processor from AMD....MORE
And from NVIDIA:

TomTom Selects NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 for Real-Time HD Map Updating 
GTC Europe -- NVIDIA and TomTom (TOM2), the Dutch mapping and navigation group, today announced they are partnering to develop artificial intelligence to create a cloud-to-car mapping system for self-driving cars. The work combines TomTom's extensive HD map coverage, which already spans more than 120,000 km of highways and freeways, with the NVIDIA DRIVE™ PX 2 computing platform.

Together, the solution accelerates support for real-time in-vehicle localization and mapping for driving on the highway. NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced the collaboration at the company's inaugural GTC Europe, a regional version of its annual GPU Technology Conference in Silicon Valley, now in its seventh year. "Self-driving cars require a highly accurate HD mapping system that can generate an always up-to-date HD map in the cloud," said Rob Csongor, vice president and general manager of Automotive at NVIDIA. 
"DRIVE PX 2 for AutoCruise provides TomTom with a real-time, in-vehicle source for HD map updates." The NVIDIA DriveWorks software development kit now integrates support for TomTom's HD mapping environment. The open solution is available for all automakers and tier 1 suppliers developing autonomous vehicles. 
"This collaboration is an important step for TomTom," said Willem Strijbosch, head of Autonomous Driving at TomTom. "Combining our highly accurate HD maps with NVIDIA's self-driving car platform will enable us to propose new features to automakers faster, and therefore to make autonomous driving a commercial reality sooner."...MORE
Same 'ol, same 'ol.
Still no disruptive food delivery app though.