Continental invests in German-US AI chip start-up Recogni

The technology company Continental has acquired a minority stake in the German-US start-up Recogni. The company is working on a new chip architecture for object recognition in real time based on artificial intelligence (AI).

The processors of the future are intended for use in Continental’s high-performance vehicle computers, among other applications, where they will perform rapid processing of sensor data for automated and autonomous driving. As a strategic investor, Continental is contributing both its financial commitment as well as its expertise in the field of AI, vehicle sensors and advanced driver assistance systems to further the development of the chip design.

Continental experts predict that volume production featuring the new chip application could begin as early as 2026.

“Without faster chips, there will be no networking, no automation and no autonomous driving,” says Frank Petznick, head of the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit at Continental. “Through our own research in the area of new chip designs, our strategic partnerships with large chip manufacturers such as NVIDIA and our investment in Recogni, we are taking the first step toward meeting the future need for highly specialized processors for sensor modules and control units for our powerful, high-performance vehicle computers.”

“Continental’s support is a strong endorsement of Recogni’s approach to solving the most difficult challenges in autonomous driving,” says R K Anand, Recogni’s Chief Executive Officer. “Recogni’s focus enables us to solve challenge of perception processing by building the world’s highest performing AI inference system at the lowest energy consumption, by developing cutting-edge ASICs for state-of-the-art inference algorithms.”