NVIDIA Exploring $500 Million Investment In Autonomous Vehicle Firm Wayve

Autonomous vehicle startup Wayve is advancing its robotics capabilities through an alliance with chip-making giant NVIDIA that spans nearly seven years of continuous innovation and development. The company on Friday announced it has signed a letter of intent with NVIDIA to evaluate a $500 million strategic investment in Wayve’s next funding round. The technology collaboration between the two companies traces back to 2018, establishing a foundation for successive generations of autonomous driving systems. 

Throug this partnership, NVIDIA's processing technology has served as the backbone for Wayve's evolving robot platform architecture.

Next-Gen Platform Built On NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor

Wayve's upcoming third-generation autonomous system is a significant technological leap forward, leveraging NVIDIA's latest DRIVE AGX Thor computing platform. This integration marks the latest milestone in the companies' ongoing relationship, combining Wayve's machine learning expertise with NVIDIA's advanced semiconductor solutions.

Each successive iteration of Wayve's autonomous driving platforms has incorporated advanced NVIDIA hardware and software solutions. This approach has enabled continuous improvements in processing power, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, and real-world performance metrics across the company's robot fleet.

“Continued support from a global technology leader like NVIDIA underscores confidence in our AV2.0 approach to building embodied AI and its potential to transform the future of mobility,” Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, said in a statement.

NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor is accelerated by NVIDIA Blackwell GPU architecture and runs the safety-certified NVIDIA DriveOS, leveraging the NVIDIA Halos comprehensive safety system. The Wayve Gen 3 platform will push the frontier of embodied AI, advancing the Wayve AI Driver toward eyes-off (Level 3) and driverless (Level 4) capabilities across urban and highway domains.

The sustained partnership positions both companies at the fore of the competitive autonomous driving sector. 

By maintaining this relationship across multiple product cycles, Wayve and NVIDIA intend to developed deep integration capabilities that enhance the performance and reliability of next-generation autonomous systems.