Xavier and BB8: Nvidia heroes drive ambitious autonomous car plans

The race between two key chip makers to put self-driving cars on the streets is getting heated.

And it's no less entertaining, involving the likes of BB8, a self-driving Nvidia car named after a droid in Star Wars, and the company's automotive supercomputer called Xavier, named after an X-men superhero.

These two playfully named products are a big part of Nvidia's ambitious plans to put a fleet of self-driving cars on the streets by 2020. Nvidia is collaborating with Audi to develop these autonomous cars, which will be based on the Drive-PX computer.

Nvidia's announcement comes just a day after Intel and BMW said they were putting 40 self-driving cars on the street by the end of this year. Those are test vehicles, but a big change from Intel's earlier plans to put the first self-driving cars on the street by 2021.

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