Tesla Inc. has teamed up with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to design a custom-made chip dedicated to artificial intelligence processing in self-driving cars, according to a report published Wednesday.

CNBC, quoting sources, claimed that the progress toward building a custom Tesla AI chip had reached the car maker, which has received back “samples of the first implementation of its processor” and is now running tests on it. Seemingly confirming the story, Sanjay Jha, chief executive officer of GlobalFoundries, a semiconductor foundry based in Santa Clara, California, and a former division of AMD, is reported to have said at a conference that his company was working with Tesla on the chip. That’s relevant because the company has an exclusive supply agreement with AMD through 2020.

Tesla has previously relied on chips developed and manufactured by Nvidia Corp., a company better known for its graphics chips and cards that has progressively moved toward applying the technology to artificial intelligence and self-driving cars. In theory, Tesla’s development of its own AI chips would reduce its reliance on using Nvidia.

Neither AMD nor Tesla has publicly commented on the report.

Should the custom AI chip deliver on its promise, it would assist Tesla’s longer-term goal of delivering a fully autonomous self-driving vehicle. The company today offers “Autopilot,” which despite the name does not deliver a fully self-driving option, instead what Tesla itself describes as a “driver assist” feature. In effect, Tesla owners can engage autopilot on a freeway and allow their vehicle to drive itself, but outside of nonchallenging road environments, human intervention is required.

Tesla’s self-driving ambitions do not stop at cars alone either. The company has moved toward delivering self-driving semi-trucks as well. Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk (pictured) said in April that the company planned to launch its self-driving truck this month. But 20 days into the month, there has been no official announcement. That announcement may be coming, though, as it was reported last month that Tesla had applied for testing licenses for them.

Photo: heisenbergmedia/Flickr