Uber and Volkswagen to use Nvidia AI technology in self-driving cars

Nvidia has significantly increased its presence in the self-driving market since announcing its self-driving technology. The company already has major companies in the self-driving space as customers, including Tesla and Baidu, but it has recently added two more major companies to its roster. Today, the company announced partnerships with Uber and Volkswagen at CES.

Nvidia also announced the launch of AI chips for self-driving cars . This is something the company first told people in 2016. The chip, called Xavier, was developed by Nvidia with AI features specific to self-driving cars . Along with the launch of the Xavier AI chip, the company also provided details about its partnerships with Uber and Volkswagen.

According to the company’s conference at CES 2018, Uber has been using Nvidia’s GPU computing technology since its first test fleet of Volvo SC90 SUVs in Pittsburgh and Phoenix in 2016 . In fact, the company claimed that in the last 100 days alone, Nvidia helped Uber achieve 1 million self-driving miles.

As for Volkswagen, the auto giant announced that it is partnering with Nvidia to use Nvidia’s Drive IX platform in some of its upcoming vehicles, including the ID Buzz electric bus . For those not familiar with Nvidia’s Drive IX platform, it’s essentially a software developer toolkit that helps developers leverage the power of its Xavier AI chip.

At the conference, both Nvidia and Volkswagen seemed very confident in their partnership. Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of Nvidia, said:

“In just a few years, we expect all new vehicles to be equipped with AI assistants for voice, gesture, and facial recognition, as well as augmented reality. Volkswagen and NVIDIA DRIVE IX Technology Together Together, we are building a new generation of cars that are safer, more fun to drive, and more accessible than anything before.”

Nvidia appears to have made the leap from just a GPU company to one of the most self-driving focused companies in the world. According to a statement from the company, the company is working with more than 320 customers in the self-driving space, and it appears that the company will play a key role in making vehicles fully autonomous.