“Apex.AI Focuses on SDV Acceleration and Differentiation Function Development”


Car architecture transforms into a small number of HPCs with machine learning hardware accelerators
Apex.Grace, Supporting Rapid Deployment of Software Development and SDV Applications

[Editor’s Note] Apex.AI develops safety-certified and scalable middleware software solutions for a variety of mobility applications to support a rapid transition to SDV. Apex.AI, which offers a variety of solutions for SDV, including Apex.Grace, an automotive-grade software development kit for mobility applications, is also participating in a project to develop smart autonomous driving devices that can be applied in the agricultural sector. To this end, we interviewed Jan Becker, CEO of Apex.AI and winner of the Pioneer Award at the 2nd Annual SDV Innovator Awards held at CES 2024.

▲Jan Becker, CEO of Apex.AI

■ What is Apex.AI's purpose for participating in CES 2024 and what products did it exhibit?

Apex.AI has been attending CES in Las Vegas for six years now.

CES has been at the forefront of introducing innovative technologies to the world and changing the lives of people all over the world, which is why it attracts major business leaders from around the world every year.

Apex.AI's primary purpose for participating in CES is to meet with existing and potential customers and partners as a B2B company.

CES attracts customers and partners from all over the world, so you can expect to have more than 50 meetings during the four days of the event.

Another important goal is to identify and keep up with emerging technologies and trends in the industry.

At this year's CES, Apex.AI showcased its products, centered around Apex.Grace and Apex.Ida.

■ As SDV becomes a trend in the automotive industry, Apex.GraceThe importance of Apex.Grace is growing. Please tell us about the role and development trends of Apex.Grace in the SDV market.

Apex.Grace is an automotive-grade, robust real-time software development kit for mobility applications.

In a software-defined vehicle (SDV), complex applications are implemented in software and the vehicle is always connected.

Additionally, applications can be updated and features expanded later, and the vehicle's software is independent of the hardware product cycle.

Developing and maintaining these complex software products efficiently requires a solid foundation.

By providing this foundation, Apex.Grace not only enables developers to quickly and efficiently develop production-ready software, but also enables vehicle manufacturers to rapidly deploy SDV applications into production vehicles.

Apex.Grace has already achieved the highest level of automotive safety certification (ISO 26262 ASIL-D).

■ Many companies, including Continental, Volvo, and Toyota, are actively investing in Apex.AI. I'm curious what these companies expect from Apex.AI and how Apex.AI is responding to it.

Strategic investors are generally seeing software becoming increasingly important as SDV emerges as a major trend and are investing in this space.

Apex.AI helps OEMs and component suppliers accelerate the development of SDVs and focus on developing differentiated features for their end customers.

■ What does Apex.AI see as the future of the automotive industry?

As software becomes increasingly important in mobility, the automotive industry is experiencing a transformation.

In the past, complete systems were supplied by component suppliers, but now automobile manufacturers are starting to develop many software applications in-house.

Vehicle architectures are evolving from a mix of many small, distributed microcontroller-based ECUs to a smaller number of high-performance computers (HPCs) using powerful microprocessor-based systems-on-chip (SOCs) with machine learning hardware accelerators.

Many functions that were previously run on separate ECUs will be integrated into these HPCs.

This requires a central vehicle operating system running on the HPC, and ECU software that was previously developed individually by multiple suppliers must now run on the same computer and use the same operating system APIs.

Apex.AI supports this transition with a ready-to-use software development kit that OEMs can integrate into their vehicle OS to accelerate their journey to SDV.nbsp;

■ What are Apex.AI’s goals for 2024?

Our goal for 2024 is to help customers transition from SDV development to SDV mass production deployment.

We expect SDV mass production deployments to begin in off-road applications in 2024 and 2025, followed by vehicle SDV applications.

■ A word to e4ds news and Korean readers

As mentioned earlier, we are very excited to see Apex.AI enter Korea.

In 2024, we look forward to further growing our Korean branch and strengthening our services for our Korean customers and partners.