Apple has hired Jonathan Cohen, an artificial intelligence expert from Nvidia. Cohen ran Nvidia's deep learning software division. Deep learning is a branch of artificial intelligence focused on training computers to understand visual data. While Apple has been looking to make more hires in the area of artificial intelligence more recently to increase the utility of software like Siri, it's possible that Cohen was hired to work on Apple's rumored autonomous car project.
While usually known for gaming hardware, according to Re/code, Nvidia's attention has lately been focused on artificial intelligence for autonomous vehicles:
Lately, Nvidia has used the technique for cars. The company sells its chips — graphic processing units, or GPUs — to carmakers, which use it to power cameras and radar that enable vehicles to drive autonomously.
Cohen's exact role at Apple hasn't been specified, simply noting his job as "software" on his LinkdIn profile. You can watch Cohen explain deep learning and Nvidia's work on autonomous cars back at CES 2015 in the video below.
Source: Re/code, Jonathan Cohen (LinkedIn)
