Nvidia is building out an automotive tech business. Pictured here are its autonomous vehicle test cars at the company's auto garage in Santa Clara, California, June 5, 2023.
Nvidia on Monday unveiled plans to test a robotaxi service with a partner as soon as 2027, highlighting the chipmaker's ambition to become a major player in the world of self-driving cars.
The service would be offered with a partner, and would employ cars with "Level 4" driving, meaning they will be capable of driving without human intervention in pre-defined regions, Nvidia officials said at a self-driving demonstration in San Francisco last month. The company declined to name where it would operate and who its partner will be.
"We will probably start with a limited availability but work with the partner for us to get our footing," Xinzhou Wu, Nvidia's vice president of automotive, said at the event.
Since 2015, Nvidia has offered chips and other technology for cars under the brand name Drive, but that remains a small part of the company's business. Automotive and robotics chips accounted for just $592 million in sales in the quarter ended in October, or about 1% of Nvidia's total revenue. Nvidia announced a robotaxi partnership with Uber in October.
The chipmaker said in December that it had developed software that can power a self-driving car, and that Mercedes-Benz models to be released in late 2026 will be able to use Nvidia's technology to navigate cities like San Francisco.
Self-driving cars remain one of the primary areas where Nvidia can show growth outside of AI infrastructure. CEO Jensen Huang has said that robotics — including self-driving cars — is the company's second most important growth category after artificial intelligence.
"We imagine that someday, a billion cars on the road will all be autonomous," Huang said at a launch event on Monday at the CES conference in Las Vegas. "You could either have it be a robotaxi that you're orchestrating and renting from somebody, or you could own it."
In addition to chips that go inside self-driving cars, Nvidia sells access to its famed AI chips as well as its simulation software to automotive companies so they can train self-driving models and develop technology.
Nvidia says that car makers can use its Drive AGX Thor automotive computer, which costs about $3,500 per chip, to save on research and development costs, and get self-driving features to market faster. Nvidia said it works with car makers to tune its technology, such as determining how hard the car should accelerate, for specific vehicles.
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