[News] NVIDIA’s Thor Smart Driving Chip Rumored to Suffer Delays, Causing China’s Xpeng to Hesitate

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NVIDIA might face the risk of losing key customers as delays plague its next-gen smart driving chip, Thor. According to a report from 36Kr, China’s electric vehicle giant Xpeng is considering shelving its plans to integrate the chip, as the US chip giant is said to postpone Thor’s mass production schedule by at least a year.

Chip Architecture Might Lead to the Problem

Sources close to NVIDIA told 36Kr that Thor was originally expected to enter mass production in mid-2024. However, the timeline has been repeatedly pushed back, as Thor might be facing issues with its chip architecture, 36Kr suggests.

A senior expert in the chip industry told 36Kr that Thor integrates NVIDIA’s latest Blackwell. However, NVIDIA has encountered several issues on Blackwell. A couple of month ago, the product had reportedly suffered from design flaw affecting processor yields, which is said to be related to TSMC’s CoWoS advanced packaging but eventually resolved by making changes to the GPU’s masks.

“Thor has been delayed until everyone’s in-house chips have matured,” an industry insider told 36Kr.

According to the report, at the 2024 GTC conference in March, China’s leading automakers, including Xpeng, Zeekr, BYD, and Li Auto, all announced their partnerships with NVIDIA to adopt Thor in their new models.

Among them, Xpeng’s latest model, the P7+, had also reportedly considered adopting Thor. But due to the delay, the model ultimately uses NVIDIA’s second-generation autonomous driving chip, Orin, the report notes.

Xpeng, NIO to Adopt Self-Developed Smart Driving Chips in 2025

Meanwhile, 36Kr states that Xpeng is accelerating the adoption of its self-developed intelligent driving chip, Turing. Notably, the chip has already been taped out, and Xpeng is currently testing and validating its stability and performance, the report adds.

On the other hand, NIO’s self-developed intelligent driving chip, Shenji NX9031, had officially been taped out this July, as per 36Kr. Similar to Xpeng, NIO’s new models next year will likely feature smart driving chips such as its self-developed Shenji, NVIDIA’s Orin, and local chip maker Horizon Robotics’ products, but not Thor, the report indicates.

It is worth noting that NVIDIA’s second-generation smart driving chip, Orin, remains dominant in its overall automotive AI chip shipments, as China’s auto giants are the product’s key customers.

According to 36Kr, NIO CEO William Li stated that the company’s procurement of intelligent driving chips accounted for 46% of NVIDIA’s global shipments in 2023. The delay of Thor chip and the potential loss of customers, therefore, will pose challenges for NVIDIA’s automotive AI chip business next year, the report adds.

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(Photo credit: NVIDIA)