Ambarella Steps Beyond Imaging With AI Powering Antigravity’s 360 Drone

• Ambarella’s CV5 chip powers the Antigravity A1, enabling 8K video capture and onboard AI for real-time drone autonomy.
• The launch reflects Ambarella’s shift beyond imaging as it expands into edge AI and autonomous drone applications.

Ambarella has announced that its CV5 AI system-on-chip is powering the new Antigravity A1, described as the world’s first all-in-one 360 drone. In the A1, the chip handles both video capture and runs AI tasks to enable autonomy directly onboard. In its announcement, Ambarella says the launch marks a shift beyond imaging, as the company invests in edge AI to enable real-time autonomy across a growing range of drone applications.

"As drones evolve from “flying cameras” to intelligent robotic platforms with higher autonomy, Ambarella is investing in technologies that help drone makers deliver higher image quality, lower latency decision-making, and more autonomous capabilities without relying on constant cloud connectivity," the company stated in its official press release.

The CV5 chip powers 8K video capture with high image quality and stability, enabling detailed, full-field recording in dynamic environments. It also handles tasks like obstacle detection, movement tracking, and scene recognition directly on the drone. This allows it to operate independently without the need for network access. Built on Ambarella’s third-generation CVflow architecture, the chip combines deep learning inference with advanced computer vision to support real-time decision-making. Optimized for power- and space-constrained systems, it brings autonomy to use cases like infrastructure inspection, agriculture, public safety, and industrial monitoring.

“Drones are quickly transforming into intelligent edge aerial robots, capturing, processing and understanding the world in real time,” said Fermi Wang, President and CEO of Ambarella, in a press release. “Ambarella’s heritage in high-quality imaging, combined with our CVflow AI roadmap, enables drone makers to push more autonomy and more insight onto the drone itself, where every millisecond and every milliwatt matters.”

With a legacy in video compression and image processing, Ambarella’s SoCs have long supported stabilized, high-resolution aerial imaging. Now, the company says it is expanding its roadmap to enable higher levels of autonomous robotics, from L1 to L4, by embedding AI directly on the device. The CV5-powered Antigravity A1 will be showcased at CES during Ambarella’s invitation-only exhibition in Las Vegas, with demos available by request.

🌀 Tom’s Take:

Ambarella built its reputation on image processing, but this move signals its push into autonomy. The company has spent years helping machines capture the world, and now, with AI at the edge, it's helping them understand it. This is its way into spatial computing, from seeing to sensing to deciding.

Source: Globe Newswire / Ambarella