AMD lands Kodiak, a first in autonomous truck compute

EPYC gives the Kodiak platform 80 PCIe lanes to move data at high rates. Base frequency is 3.15 GHz. Max boost reaches 4.4 GHz. AMD estimates a 25% clock-speed gain over the previous generation, at lower power consumption.

“Physical AI requires compute capabilities that can rapidly handle enormous amounts of sensor data while supporting increasingly sophisticated AI workloads,” said Don Burnette, founder and CEO of Kodiak. “AMD delivers best-in-class CPU technology with the performance, scalability and efficiency required for advanced autonomous driving applications. AMD EPYC CPUs give us the compute capabilities we need to advance the Kodiak Driver and continue commercializing autonomous trucking.”

Off-the-shelf silicon ahead of the highway launch

Kodiak is using commercially available hardware from AMD, keeping its engineering resources on scalable, production-ready trucks. That approach matters more as the driverless fleet in the Permian Basin grows.

The Kodiak Driver runs today in long-haul trucking, industrial trucking and defense. Commercial partners include Atlas Energy Solutions, IKEA, J.B. Hunt, Bridgestone, Werner Enterprises, C.R. England, General Dynamics Land Systems and Roehl Transport. Kodiak sells the system through a Driver-as-a-Service model and strategic partnerships.

“Physical AI is pushing computing into some of the most complex and data-intensive environments in the world,” said Wayne Lyons, senior director of the automotive market at AMD. “Kodiak is demonstrating what’s possible when advanced autonomous driving software is paired with high-performance AMD compute. Together with Kodiak, AMD is providing the processing capabilities needed to move driverless trucking from innovation to significant scale.”