Sept 20 (Reuters) – Chip giant Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) on Tuesday unveiled its new computing platform called DRIVE Thor that would centralize autonomous and assisted driving as well as other digital functions including in-car entertainment. Danny Shapiro, head of Nvidia's automotive business, said DRIVE Thor would be able to replace numerous chips and cables in the car and bring down the overall system cost, although he did not give specific numbers on savings. Some automakers have begun work on designing their own chips to gain more control and cut costs. General Motor's (GM.N) autonomous driving unit Cruise last week said it had developed its own chips to be deployed by 2025. "There's a lot of companies doing great work, doing things that will benefit mankind and we want to support them," Shapiro said.

The company had other news up its sleeve, including in the autonomous vehicle space. During the GTC keynote, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang announced a system-on-chip (SoC) called Drive Thor. NVIDIA says it designed the chip using the latest advancements in graphics and processing to provide 2,000 teraflops of performance, all while keeping costs down. NVIDIA says that Drive Thor can unify all the various functions of vehicles -- including infotainment, the digital dashboard, sensors, parking and autonomous operation -- for greater efficiency. Vehicles with the chipset will be able to run Linux, QNX and Android simultaneously.