Ferrari accelerates digital transformation with Qualcomm strategic technology collaboration

Realising the dreams of racing fans everywhere, Qualcomm Technologies has teamed up with Ferrari to serve as the legendary Italian motor racing and manufacturing firm’s premium partner for its upcoming range of road cars, as well as for its Formula 1 and Ferrari Esports teams.

From a specific technological basis, the partnership will see Ferrari work with Qualcomm Technologies to make use of the Snapdragon Digital Chassis to bring the latest automotive technology advancements to Ferrari road cars.

The Snapdragon Digital Chassis is designed to support open and scalable cloud-connected platforms needed for next-generation vehicles, which includes telematics and connectivity, the digital cockpit and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) functions. It utilises a unified architecture to deliver what Qualcomm assures is enhanced safety and immersive digital experiences that are updateable throughout the lifetime of the vehicles. 

As part of the agreement, Qualcomm Technologies and its partners will also work with Ferrari to design, develop and integrate Ferrari’s digital cockpits.   

Qualcomm Technologies will begin serving as a Premium Partner of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 team at the start of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship race season, where Snapdragon will be featured on the new Scuderia Ferrari’s F1-75 single-seaters. Additionally, the Maranello marque’s Esports activities will also be part of the official partnership.

“We believe innovation requires market leaders working together,” said Benedetto Vigna, CEO of Ferrari. “Thanks to this agreement with Qualcomm Technologies, we expand our knowledge in digital technologies and Web 3.0 areas with great potential for automotive and motorsport. We believe valuable partnerships, and a distinctive Ferrari interpretation, ultimately enhances product excellence.”

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said it was excited to see its automotive technology leadership play an integral role in this new strategic relationship with Ferrari. “We look forward to helping shape what the future holds as we work together to bring world-class driving experiences to their customers through our Snapdragon Digital Chassis,” he added.

“We believe innovation requires market leaders working together. Thanks to this agreement with Qualcomm Technologies, we expand our knowledge in digital technologies and Web 3.0 areas with great potential for automotive and motorsport”

The deployment comes on the back of Qualcomm unveiling a range of display automotive solutions based on the Snapdragon portfolio to support automakers in meeting evolving consumer and enterprise demand for a connected, intelligent experience. It launched a premium platform for developing customisable ADAS applications.

At the heart of the new offer, launched at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, was the Snapdragon Ride Vision System. This comprises a programmable platform that addresses a spectrum of driver assistance and automated driving needs, from the New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) to L2+/L3.

A key ingredient of the Snapdragon Ride hardware platform is the Snapdragon Ride system on chip (SoC). Designed to address the needs of the ADAS ecosystem, it has hardware blocks that enable ADAS applications such as machine learning and vision processing blocks for neural network-based perception, a vision accelerator for image pre- and post-processing applications, graphic accelerators for visualisation and parallel processing GP-GPU support, and a video processor for streaming media support.