PC World New Zealand Finally, a good use for Intel's lowly Atom CPU: In... Finally, a good use for Intel's lowly Atom CPU: Inside NASA's $2.7B Perseverance rover The Atom had to go to Mars to get some respect. Credit: NASA Intel’s underpowered Atom CPU has finally found some respect—on Mars. The lowly chip had a tough time on Earth, winning the faintest of praise for its pedestrian performance. But its energy-sipping ways were apparently a good fit for a couple of compute modules that NASA built into its $2.7 billion Perseverance rover. Intel said Monday that there are at least two Atom SoCs embedded inside of Perseverance. The chip is the main processor aboard a COMEX-IE38 computing module developed by Israel-based CompuLab.