Citi talks Nvidia after CNBC says Tesla working with AMDCiti analyst Atif Malik says he received several investor inquiries about Nvidia's (NVDA) relationship with Tesla (TSLA) after CNBC report yesterday that the electric carmaker is working with Global Foundries, AMD's (AMD) manufacturing foundry directly on custom built chips for self-driving cars. The analyst notes that Tesla currently uses Nvidia's Drive PX2 as part of its autopilot self-driving system. The news is not a surprise and Tesla likely wants to be more vertically integrated and examine all options for artificial intelligence hardware, Malik tells investors in a research note. Further, Tesla's current silicon team leader Jim Keller was formerly at AMD, Malik points out. He adds that Tesla at a recent Citi conference indicated it feels great about its relationship with Nvidia. The analyst estimates Tesla is less than 1% of Nvidia's overall sales currently. He keeps a Buy rating on the shares with a $185 price target. Nvidia closed yesterday down 1% to $185.84.
|