Nvidia says it’s steering self-driving cars into the future

Nvidia is not only critical to big tech companies and governments developing their own AI platforms but also to the self-driving car market. Or at least the AI chipmaker’s executives think so.

Colette Kress, Nvidia’s CFO, boldly stated on a call with investors Wednesday that “nearly every automotive company working on AI is working with Nvidia.” And company revenues from the automotive industry rose 21% to a record $1.1 billion last year.

The tech giant thinks those good fortunes will continue. “We expect Nvidia’s automotive data center processing demand to grow significantly,” Kress added.

Nvidia currently works with several hundred companies in the auto world, including carmakers, truck makers, robotaxis, sensor manufacturers, and startups. Its high-profile automaker customers include Mercedes, Volvo, and Hyundai. And Tesla was one of the tech giant’s biggest customers in 2023, buying 15,000 of Nvidia’s most popular, super pricey AI chips (H100 GPUs), according to a report from D.A. Davidson.

It’s not necessarily just H100s that car companies use, though. Nvidia has a full software system that runs on its GPUs for self-driving vehicles called Nvidia Drive. It can be used for fully autonomous cars or as a co-pilot for human drivers.

“We believe our comprehensive, top-to-bottom and end-to-end approach will enable the transportation industry to solve the complex problems arising from the shift to autonomous driving,” Nvidia said in an SEC filing (pdf) Wednesday.

Its latest innovation was an automotive-grade chip called Thor in late 2022. The chip goes into production in 2025.

Self-driven disasters

The autonomous car industry isn’t without its troubles. While Nvidia is cruising, self-driving car companies and businesses that make related technologies lost a lot of money last year.

Tesla had to issue a software update across nearly all of its cars on U.S. roads at the end of 2023 and then 1.6 million cars in China due to issues with its autopilot system. Self-driving truck companies have gone belly-up. Waymo and Cruise, two top robotaxi companies, have faced significant challenges and scrutiny from regulators.

Still, Nvidia’s press releases tout self-driven cars as a safe alternative to human-steered ones.