Chinese Automakers Bet On Nvidia Drive Thor Chip For Self-Driving Cars

Nvidia, the world’s largest semiconductor company, has announced the expansion of its partnerships with several major Chinese automotive manufacturers to develop the next generation of robotaxis and autonomous delivery vehicles. The announcement came during the company's recent GTC developer conference, where Nvidia also unveiled its latest DRIVE Thor platform, which incorporates the new generative AI capabilities of the Blackwell AI superchips.

The DRIVE Thor platform is a centralised car computer designed to power the next generation of consumer and commercial fleets, including electric, hybrid, and hydrogen-powered vehicles, as well as trucks, robotaxis, and last-mile autonomous delivery vehicles. The platform has been tailored for generative AI applications, which are increasingly being used in the automotive industry.

DRIVE Thor, the successor to the Drive Orin platform, boasts advanced digital cockpit capabilities and is designed for safe, automated, and autonomous driving via a centralised system. It integrates the Blackwell architecture, which Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang referred to as "a processor for the age of generative AI". The Blackwell-based DRIVE Thor platform is set to enter production later this year and will offer an impressive 1,000 teraflops of compute power.

Xinzhou Wu, vice president of automotive at Nvidia, stated, "Accelerated compute has led to transformative breakthroughs, including generative AI, which is redefining autonomy and the global transportation industry at large. DRIVE Orin continues to be the AI car computer of choice for today's intelligent fleets, but now we're seeing mobility leaders looking ahead to bring NVIDIA DRIVE Thor into their next-generation, AI-enabled vehicle roadmaps."

Several Chinese partners are developing advanced products using DRIVE Thor, with many focusing on autonomous fleets. BYD, the world's largest EV maker, plans to expand its collaboration with Nvidia Cloud and build a next-generation EV fleet using DRIVE Thor. The company also intends to use Nvidia's AI infrastructure for cloud-based AI development, utilising NVIDIA Isaac and NVIDIA Omniverse for virtual factory planning and retail configurations.

Hyper, a premium luxury brand owned by GAC AION, will use DRIVE Thor for its next-generation EVs, set to begin production in 2025 with level 4 autonomous driving capability. Xpeng, whose head of autonomous driving recently joined Nvidia as the automotive VP, will also use DRIVE Thor as the brain for its next-generation EV fleets, powering the company's XNGP AI-assisted driving system.

In the logistics space, several Chinese OEMs are partnering with Nvidia. Nuro, which develops level 4 autonomous driving technology for commercial and consumer vehicles, has selected DRIVE Thor to power its integrated autonomous driving system, Nuro Driver. Plus, a provider of autonomous driving software solutions, announced its level 4 SuperDrive will also be based on DRIVE Thor, leveraging the platform's compute performance within its autonomous driving system.

Waabi, a company that develops AI for self-driving, is also using DRIVE Thor to deliver the first generative AI-powered autonomous trucking solution to the market. WeRide, already partnered with Lenovo Vehicle Computing, is creating multiple level 4 autonomous driving solutions for commercial applications built on DRIVE Thor, using Lenovo's first autonomous driving domain controller, AD1.

The expansion of Nvidia's partnerships with Chinese automotive firms highlights the growing importance of AI and autonomous driving technology in the global automotive industry. As these collaborations progress, they are expected to contribute significantly to the development and deployment of next-generation autonomous vehicles and intelligent transportation solutions.