Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers the keynote address at the company’s annual GTC developer conference at SAP Center in San Jose, California on March 16, 2026.
Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images
Nvidia We are currently expanding our self-driving car development business with Hyundai Motors. nissan motors In addition to Isuzu, Chinese automaker BYD and software chip giant Geely Automobile made the announcements on Monday.
The new partnership is related to Nvidia’s AV platform Drive Hyperion. The system helps companies develop and deploy driver assistance and autonomous driving capabilities for “Level 4” AVs. This feature is the ability to drive without human intervention in predefined areas or situations.
“We’ve been working on self-driving cars for a long time. The ChatGPT moment for self-driving cars has arrived,” NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said Monday at the company’s GTC conference. “We now know that we can successfully make cars self-driving, and today we are announcing four new partners for Nvidia’s robotaxi-enabled platform. …The number of robotaxi-enabled vehicles in the future will be incredible.”
Although no vehicles currently sold to consumers can drive themselves without human supervision or intervention, some companies, such as: of the alphabet Waymo offers a fleet of Level 4 autonomous vehicles, also known as robotaxis. Most vehicles sold today are considered Level 2, which requires drivers to continuously monitor their systems.
Drive Hyperion is part of what Nvidia calls an “end-to-end” AV platform that includes data center training, large-scale simulation, and in-vehicle computing. The company does not manufacture or sell AVs or many of the components needed to operate such vehicles.
Drive Hyperion’s current Nvidia customers include many self-driving companies such as Aurora and Nuro, as well as more consumer-oriented companies such as: sony group, Uber Technologiesjeep parent Stellantis and electric car manufacturers lucid group.
AVs are important to Nvidia because self-driving cars remain one of the key areas for chipmakers to show growth outside of artificial intelligence.
Many believe AI may be the key to AV adoption, which Wall Street analysts and auto executives are targeting as a multitrillion-dollar growth industry.
These new companies join a growing list of such partnerships for Nvidia, as the auto and technology industry looks to leverage and popularize AVs after years of failure in the robotaxi business.
Waymo has been a leader in the AV industry for years, but other companies are also teslawith Uber Amazon’s Zoox tries to catch up.
general motorsCruise, which is backed by , was once seen as a leader along with Waymo, but it was controversially disbanded after a pedestrian was dragged by one of its vehicles in San Francisco. GM invested more than $10 billion in Cruise before exiting the robotaxi business in 2024.
—CNBC’s Katie Tarasov contributed to this report.
