Key Highlights
- Five major automakers—BYD, Geely, Hyundai, Nissan, and Isuzu—announced partnerships with Nvidia at the GTC conference
- Each partner will utilize Nvidia’s DRIVE Hyperion platform to develop Level 4 autonomous vehicles
- An expanded Uber collaboration aims to deploy robotaxi services in 28 metropolitan areas spanning four continents by 2028
- Initial deployment is scheduled for Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area beginning in early 2027
- Nvidia introduced Alpamayo 1.5, an enhanced open-source AI model for self-driving technology, with more than 100,000 developer downloads
At Monday’s GTC conference, Nvidia unveiled a comprehensive series of autonomous vehicle collaborations, significantly expanding its footprint in the self-driving sector. During the San Jose event, CEO Jensen Huang revealed strategic partnerships with BYD, Geely, Hyundai, Nissan, and Isuzu, all centered around the company’s DRIVE Hyperion platform.
DRIVE Hyperion represents Nvidia’s comprehensive autonomous vehicle solution. The platform integrates data center training capabilities, extensive simulation environments, and in-vehicle computing power into a unified reference design that manufacturers can leverage to create Level 4-capable automobiles—vehicles that operate independently without human intervention under specific conditions.
Huang expressed confidence in the technology’s maturation. “We’ve been working on self-driving cars for a long time. The ChatGPT moment of self-driving cars has arrived,” he declared during his keynote.
The Uber partnership generated considerable interest. The companies announced an enhanced collaboration to introduce autonomous vehicle fleets in 28 cities across four continents by 2028. Initial operations will commence in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area during the first half of 2027.
This autonomous fleet will operate using Nvidia’s complete AV software ecosystem, incorporating the DRIVE Hyperion computing architecture alongside the newly introduced Halos OS safety framework.
Additional ride-hailing companies including Bolt, Grab, and Lyft have committed to building their autonomous solutions on DRIVE Hyperion, extending Nvidia’s AV platform influence beyond traditional automotive manufacturers.
Alpamayo 1.5 Advances Autonomous Driving AI Capabilities
Nvidia unveiled Alpamayo 1.5 during Monday’s event, representing a substantial enhancement to its open-source AI model suite for autonomous driving. This updated version processes driving video footage, movement history, navigation instructions, and natural language commands as inputs, generating driving trajectories accompanied by reasoning explanations.
Essentially, developers can now instruct vehicles on desired actions and behaviors through text-based commands. This marks a significant improvement over previous systems that required complete model retraining to modify driving characteristics.
The initial Alpamayo release has achieved over 100,000 downloads among automotive developers since debuting earlier this year. Version 1.5 introduces flexible multi-camera compatibility and adjustable camera settings, simplifying the process of deploying identical AI infrastructure across various vehicle models.
Advanced Safety Framework and Simulation Capabilities
Complementing the new partnerships and model enhancements, Nvidia launched NVIDIA Halos OS—a comprehensive safety architecture constructed on ASIL D-certified foundations. This system provides AV developers with a production-ready safety infrastructure for Level 4 autonomous vehicles.
Ten organizations, including AEye, Hesai, Valeo, and Flex, have joined the Nvidia Halos AI Systems Inspection Lab, established to evaluate and certify AV safety technologies.
Nvidia also announced general availability for NVIDIA Omniverse NuRec. This tool employs 3D Gaussian Splatting technology to recreate real-world environments for simulation purposes, enabling developers to rigorously test AV performance without constructing physical testing facilities.
Isuzu and TIER IV are leveraging DRIVE Hyperion to create Level 4 autonomous buses. Nissan’s L4 development program utilizes Wayve software operating on the platform.
Nvidia stock showed a 0.26% increase during after-hours trading Monday, building upon regular session advances.
