Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. will operate a U.S. factory owned by SoftBank Group Corp., setting up what's in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company's 500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. SoftBank is acquiring Hon Hai's electric-vehicle plant in Ohio but the Taiwanese company will continue to run the complex after turning it into an AI server production plant, Hon Hai Chairman Young Liu said, confirming a report. SoftBank will supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies will make AI data center-related equipment, Liu said. SoftBank is scouting a number of potential data center sites to serve as a flagship for Stargate, weighing their access to water, power and telecom networks. Hon Hai's participation represents a boon for SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son's ambition to be at the center of surging investment in artificial intelligence hardware. Hon Hai -- known also as Foxconn -- assembles Apple iPhones and Nvidia servers.

AI chipmaker Nvidia has announced a partnership with Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn to build autonomous vehicle platforms at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2023. Foxconn will manufacture electronic control units (ECUs) for cars based on Nvidia's DRIVE Orin chip and DRIVE Hyperion sensors for self-driving vehicles. The chip is made specifically for computing in connected autonomous vehicles. Nvidia estimates a $300 billion market opportunity in the automobile industry, where it generated $251 million in revenue in the third quarter. Nvidia strives to use its technology to aid Foxconn in overcoming shortcomings like upgrading production and higher costs.

NVIDIA and Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn), the world's largest technology manufacturer, announced a strategic partnership to develop automated and autonomous vehicle platforms. As part of the agreement, Foxconn will be a tier-one manufacturer, producing electronic control units (ECUs) based on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin for the global automotive market. Foxconn manufactured electric vehicles (EVs) will feature DRIVE Orin ECUs and DRIVE Hyperion sensors for highly automated driving capabilities. "This strategic cooperation with NVIDIA strengthens the intelligent driving solutions Foxconn will be able to provide. Together, we are enabling the industry to build energy-efficient, automated vehicles," said Eric Yeh, senior director of the Software Development Center at Foxconn.

Getting a jump on the parade of announcements to come at this week's CES tech trade show in Las Vegas, the graphics and AI chip company Nvidia gave an unofficial virtual keynote presentation Tuesday morning, unveiling updates to its gaming, robotics, and auto businesses. Nvidia (ticker: NVDA) had a rough 2022, with its stock losing about half of its value. The company was hurt by a combination of a slowing PC gaming market, a sharp plunge in purchases of graphics chips by cryptocurrency miners, and softening sales of chips for data centers, in particular in China, where tougher export restrictions hurt the business. But the company remains a Wall Street favorite, viewed as a leader in the market for chips used in both graphics and AI applications. Nvidia focused in particular on the use of artificial intelligence software across its product lines.

Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn and Nvidia announced Tuesday ahead of CES 2023 a partnership to develop automated and autonomous vehicle platforms. Under the two-part partnership, Foxconn will become a primary supplier of electronic control units for automakers. Those ECUs, which are an essential component for all modern vehicles, will be built with Nvidia's Drive Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC), a supercomputing AI platform that supports autonomous driving functions. As part of the partnership, Foxconn agreed to build its own branded electric vehicles with the Drive Orin ECUs and Nvidia's suite of sensors like cameras, radar, lidar and ultrasonics (called Drive Hyperion) that are needed for highly automated driving capabilities. Foxconn didn't respond in time to clarify which future vehicles would feature Nvidia's tech; the company has not yet built its own vehicles and is in the process of manufacturing EVs for Fisker and Lordstown Motors.

Nvidia has inked a new partnership with Foxconn, the world's largest tech manufacturer, to produce its Nvidia Drive Orin processors for use in highly automated (and eventually autonomous) vehicles. Foxconn will also use Nvidia Drive Orin hardware and Drive Hyperion sensor suite in its own future lineup of electric vehicles. Foxconn, perhaps best known for building iPhones, will serve as a tier-one supplier of electronic control units based on the Nvidia Drive Orin system-on-a-chip processors globally, bringing large-scale volume manufacturing to meet the demands of various automakers (such as Mercedes-Benz and Volvo) with plans to use Drive's artificial intelligence tech in their next-generation driver aid systems and automated cars. Foxconn's recent entry into the electric vehicle race is beginning to pick up speed. In 2021, it announced that it would be building an EV factory in the US by 2023 before debuting an EV platform and three electric vehicles -- the Model E luxury sedan, Model C SUV and the Model T electric bus -- under its new "Foxtron" brand.

Monarch Tractor is an all-electric autonomous compact tractor, ideal for general agriculture use. Monarch Tractor signed a contract manufacturing agreement with Foxconn to produce the Monarch MK-V electric tractor and battery packs at the Foxconn Ohio manufacturing facility. Monarch co-founder and CEO Praveen Penmetsa worked in the automotive market early in his career, and is no stranger to the automotive supply chain in the midwest. The Foxconn Ohio facility is located near Lordstown in eastern Ohio and boasts approximately 6.2 million square foot campus of scalable production space. The facility produced General Motors vehicles for 50 years before selling the property to Lordstown Motors in 2019. Other notable clients of Foxconn at the facility include Apple and the electric truck company Lordstown Motors.

A whistleblower who exposed illegal working conditions in a factory making Amazon's Alexa devices says he was tortured before being jailed by Chinese authorities. Tang Mingfang, 43, was jailed after he revealed how the Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Hengyang used schoolchildren working illegally long hours to manufacture Amazon's popular Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices. Now, after spending two years in prison, he is appealing to the higher courts to clear his name. He has taken the difficult decision to talk publicly, despite being aware of the risks of reprisals, because he believes Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, have a responsibility to support his appeal and that the Observer also has a responsibility to highlight his case. Tang, who is married with a nine-year-old son, said his father – who died while he was in prison – would have wanted him to speak up when he saw young workers being abused.

Carmaker Stellantis announced a strategy Tuesday to embed AI-enabled software in 34 million vehicles across its 14 brands targeting 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion) in annual revenues by 2030. CEO Carlos Tavares heralded the move as part of a strategy that would transform the car company into a "sustainable mobility tech company," with business growth coming from over-the-air features and services. It includes key partnerships with BMW on autonomous driving, iPhone manufacturer Foxconn on customized cockpits and Waymo to expand their autonomous driving partnership into a light commercial vehicle delivery fleets. Stellantis' embrace of AI and expansion of software-enabled vehicles is part of a broad transformation in the auto industry, with a race toward more fully electric and hybrid powertrains, more autonomous driving features and increased connectivity in automobiles. Stellantis, which was formed from the combination of PSA Peugeot and FCA Fiat, said the software integration would seamlessly integrate into customers lives, with the capability of live updates providing upgraded services over time.

When most folks think of Qualcomm, the first technologies that likely come to mind are the company's industry-leading mobile platform system-on-chips for smartphones, as well as the company's end-to-end 5G connectivity solutions. However, whether you consider applications like image recognition, speech input, natural language translation or recommendation engines, modern smartphone platforms typically require a lot of artificial intelligence (AI) processing horsepower as well. As such, after years of developing silicon and software platform solutions for mobile AI applications, it stands to reason that Qualcomm has an opportunity to bring its AI accelerator technology to other intelligent edge devices and the cloud. And that's just what's happening with Qualcomm's Cloud AI 100 inference accelerator portfolio, as evidenced by the company's recent joint announcement with Foxconn, one of the largest electronics contract manufacturers and ODMs in the world. Foxconn's Industrial Internet division has launched a new AI-enabled machine vision platform called Gloria.