TECHNOLOGY DISRUPTOR OF THE YEAR

By creating and building its own computer chips, Rivian is controlling more of its future

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RIVIAN ISN'T JUST CREATing the algorithms that program their vehicles, it's creating the silicon, the computer chips that the programming calls home, too. This is a step closer to vertical integration than any other automaker, and why Rivian is Newsweek’s World’s Greatest Auto Disruptor Technology Disruptor of the Year.

“Building our own silicon is the next step in our journey to remain vertically integrated and drive technology innovations. It allows us to design the full stack together, own the efficiency of the entire system—from silicon to software—and optimize it specifically for our vehicles and customer experience,” Vidya Rajagopalan, Rivian’s senior vice president of electrical hardware, told Newsweek.

The innovation didn’t take place in a hardened brutalist facility somewhere in a remote location, but inside an airy, single-story former school in Palo Alto, California. Like the facility, developing its own computer chips is not a usual path to take.