Mercedes-Benz and Athos Silicon drive future of autonomous computing

Mercedes-Benz invests in Athos Silicon to advance chiplet standards and autonomous computing, building on UCIe Consortium role and mSoC platform development.

Mercedes-Benz is reinforcing its position in autonomous driving computing by betting on chiplet technology. The company facilitated the creation of Athos Silicon, an independent spin-off born from research projects at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America. The new venture has received not only intellectual property but also "substantial" investments from the carmaker, which retains a minority stake. The exact size of the investment remains undisclosed.

Athos Silicon is bringing to market its modular mSoC™ architecture, which has already reached tape-out stage. Its core principles include the elimination of single points of failure, deterministic execution, and hardware-based voting for safety assurance. The first chip, named Polaris, integrates DreamBig Semiconductor’s Chiplet Hub™, underscoring the project’s readiness for real-world deployment.

This collaboration aligns with Mercedes-Benz’s broader strategy: since 2023, the company has been part of the UCIe™ Consortium, which promotes open standards for chiplet interconnects. While independent sources do not confirm whether Mercedes-Benz was the very first automaker to join, its involvement highlights the brand’s ambition to shape the rules of this emerging technological field.

Compared with other carmakers, Mercedes-Benz is taking a bold step. Most rely on established solutions from Qualcomm, NVIDIA, or Mobileye, while proprietary silicon initiatives remain rare. In this context, the Athos Silicon venture may provide a unique advantage—especially if market forecasts prove accurate, predicting growth of the chiplet sector from $9 billion in 2024 to more than $220 billion by 2033.

Historically, MBRDNA has turned experimental research into tangible products. It has delivered milestones such as the MBUX voice assistant, Apple CarPlay integration, and Drive Pilot, the first SAE Level 3 system certified in the United States. Now, chiplet architecture joins this lineup, with the potential to become a cornerstone of next-generation computing platforms.