Advanced digital features, autonomous vehicles and new auto safety legislation are all amongst the many “drivers” escalating the number of chips and technology found in next-generation automobiles.  The wireless, connectivity, storage and security technologies needed for the internal and external vehicle communications in cars today and in the future, leverage technologies used in a data center—in fact, you could say the automobile is becoming—a Data Center on Wheels.

Here are some interesting data points supporting the evolution of the Data Center on Wheels:

• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) mandates that by May 2018, all new cars in the U.S. to have backup cameras. The agency reports that half of all new vehicles sold today already have backup cameras, showing widespread acceptance even without the NHTSA mandate.
• Some luxury brands provide panoramic 360-degree surround views using multiple cameras. NVIDIA, which made its claim to fame in graphics processing chips for computers and video games, is a leading provider in the backup and surround view digital platforms, translating its digital expertise into the hottest of new vehicle trends. At the latest 2017 International CES, NVIDIA showcased its latest NVIDIA PX2, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Car Computer for Self-Driving Vehicles, which enables automakers and their tier 1 suppliers to accelerate production of automated and autonomous vehicles.
• According to an Intel presentation at CES reported in Network World, just one autonomous car will use 4,000GB (or 4 Terabytes) of data per day.
• A January study by Strategy Analytics reported that by 2020, new cars are expected to have approximately 1,000 chips per vehicle.

Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS), In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI), autonomous vehicles—will rely on digital information streamed internally within the vehicle and externally from the vehicle to other vehicles or third-party services via chips, sensors, network and wireless connectivity.  All of this data will need to be processed, stored or transmitted seamlessly and securely, because a LoJack® isn’t necessarily going to help with a car hack.

This is why auto makers are turning to the high tech and semiconductor industries to support the move to more digitized, automated cars. Semiconductor leaders in wireless, connectivity, storage, and networking are all being tapped to design and manage the Data Center on Wheels.  For example, Marvell recently announced the first automotive grade system-on-chip (SoC) that integrates the latest Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) capabilities.  Another technology product being offered for automotive use is the InnoDisk SATA 3ME4 Solid-State Drive (SSD) series. Originally designed for industrial systems integrations, these storage drives can withstand the varied temperature ranges of a car, as well as shock and vibration under rugged conditions. Both of these products integrate state-of-the-art encryption to not only keep and store information needed for data-driven vehicles, but keep that information secure from unwanted intrusion.

Marvell and others are working to form standards and adapt secure digital solutions in wireless, connectivity, networking and storage specifically for the automobile, which is even more paramount in self-driving vehicles. Current data center standards, such as Gigabit Ethernet are being developed for automobiles and the industry is stepping up to help make sure that these Data Centers on Wheels are not only safe, but secure.