Nvidia announces autonomous vehicle technology and partners with Uber

Driving the news: The chip maker unveiled Nvidia Drive AGX Hyperion 10, calling it a "reference compute and sensor architecture" for vehicles that can drive themselves with no help from humans.

• "It's going to be a very large market," Huang said.

Zoom in: Uber plans to bring 100,000 autonomous vehicles equipped with Nvidia's new system into its global ride-hailing network by 2027.

• Several automakers — including Stellantis, Lucid and Mercedes-Benz — have also signed on to use it, Nvidia said.
• "We're architecting a system that can truly drive you from any address to any address," Ali Kani, Nvidia's VP of automotive, told reporters.

The big picture: The partnership illustrates the increasingly powerful role of external developers in helping transportation companies bring their autonomous vehicle plans to life.

• "NVIDIA is the backbone of the AI era, and is now fully harnessing that innovation to unleash L4 autonomy at enormous scale, while making it easier for NVIDIA-empowered AVs to be deployed on Uber," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement.

The announcement comes a week after General Motors said it would deploy an "eyes-off" driving system on a Cadillac SUV beginning in 2028.

• No automaker has yet sold vehicles to the public that allows drivers to legally take their eyes off the road while driving.

By the numbers: Automotive represented only about 1% of Nvidia's revenue in its most recently reported quarter.

• But it's growing at a faster pace year-over-year than the company's other businesses.