NVIDIA Now Working On Its Own Robotaxis – CleanTechnica

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Because why not?

NVIDIA has actually been involved in the robotaxi world for years, providing different hardware needs to various automakers who have been automating more and more driving. For example, I just noticed that four years ago I wrote about AutoX robotaxis using NVIDIA Drive. NVIDIA also put out a blog post highlighting that “Cruise, Zoox, DiDi, Oxbotica, Pony.ai and AutoX [were] developing level 4/5 systems on NVIDIA’s autonomous vehicle platform.” It also acquired DeepMap at that time. “DeepMap expected to extend NVIDIA mapping products, scale worldwide map operations and expand NVIDIA’s full-self driving expertise,” the company announced in 2021.

The robotaxi market has matured a lot since then. Waymo is operating actual robotaxis in several cities, and a handful of Chinese robotaxi companies are operating in even more cities. NVIDIA’s tech, of course, keeps improving, and it seems the company has now decided that things have come together enough for it that it can perhaps build robotaxis itself!

Note that NVIDIA is already the world’s most valuable company. But it keeps extending its reach in tech fields. As a technology partner to various automakers and robotaxi companies, it has developed more and more of the self-driving system to help in different ways. That includes hardware, software, and simulation tools. But when you’re sitting there making all of this, why not just get into the business of building robotaxis yourself? You’ve already done the hard parts.

With partnerships with BYD, Jaguar Land Rover, Lucid, Mercedes-Benz, Nuro, Rivian, Tesla, Volvo Cars, and Xiaomi, and others, honestly, what has NVIDIA not seen and helped out with?

The robotaxi system NVIDIA is reportedly working on builds on the DRIVE AGX Thor system. It will use a continuous neural network to do the core work.

The robotaxi project was reportedly announced at an all-hands company meeting, and Ruchi Bhargava is the project lead. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang thinks that robotaxis will be a trillion-dollar industry and thinks this is “the first major commercial application of robotics.” An NVIDIA insider reportedly told 36Kr that NVIDIA is expecting to invest $3 billion into this project and will launch vehicles in US cities.

Should I even mention another company in the robotaxi space who may have a problem with this?

Featured image courtesy of NVIDIA.