Nullmax has launched Nullmax Intelligence and plans to launch full-scenario intelligent driving solutions based on the technology by 2025.

Chinese autonomous driving startup Nullmax has unveiled Nullmax Intelligence, a next-generation autonomous driving technology that attempts to allow vehicles to drive autonomously in a way that more closely resembles how humans perceive the world.

The startup unveiled Nullmax Intelligence at an event today at its research and development center in Shanghai, saying the system will tackle autonomous driving challenges in a smarter, more human-like way.

Nullmax Intelligence relies primarily on camera information for visual perception, but adds additional input support for information including voice, text, and gestures.

This enables the system to reason through tasks with an end-to-end model that outputs visualization results, scene descriptions, and driving behaviors.

Founded in Silicon Valley in 2016, Nullmax is a controlling subsidiary of Shenzhen-listed Shanghai Stonehill Technology Co Ltd.

Stonehill currently holds 39.20 percent of Nullmax's equity and 50.20 percent of its voting rights, according to an exchange announcement.

Prior to founding Nullmax, its two founders, Xu Lei and Song Xinyu, both worked at Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), where they were involved in the development of Autopilot 1.0 and 2.0.

With this experience, Nullmax chose to build intelligent driving systems that focus on visual perception.

Nullmax Intelligence has a unique architecture designed to think like a human based on incoming images, sounds, and textual information, the startup said today.

Nullmax can perform obstacle detection and 3D reconstruction through pure vision and enable autonomous driving capabilities that do not rely on high-precision maps by generating local maps in real time, according to the company.

The design of Nullmax Intelligence also allows it to have a lower cost, enabling full-scenario pilot-assisted driving even when having less than 100T of sparse computing power, the company said.

Nullmax built a data platform and an algorithm platform for data training to support the expansion of the capabilities of the Nullmax Intelligence model.

On top of real data, Nullmax generates virtual data by means of AIGC (AI Generated Content) to accelerate model development and iteration, especially scarce and high-value data, the company said.

On virtual data, Nullmax has realized the generation of elements, images and videos.

Based on the capabilities of Nullmax Intelligence, Nullmax plans to launch full-scenario intelligent driving solutions by 2025.

The company also plans to expand its AI capabilities into freight transportation and robotics.

Nullmax has already cooperated with a number of car companies and achieved revenue of about RMB 34 million ($4.7 million) in the first half of 2024, according to an earnings preview by Stonehill on July 10.

($1 = RMB 7.2686)

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