NVIDIA Reveals New AI-Powered Self-Driving Platform at Consumer Electronics Show

What Happened?

Technology giant and world-leading manufacturer of computer chips, NVIDIA, revealed the existence of its new AI self-driving platform at CES (formerly, the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas yesterday.

The CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang, gave a presentation at CES where he said the new system, which is called ‘Alpamayo’ was designed to bring reasoning ability to self-driving cars.

Mr. Huang said Nvidia was partnering with Mercedes-Benz to create a new driverless car powered by NVIDIA’s proprietary technology, which would soon be released in the United States, then Europe and Asia later this year.

Why it Matters

NVIDIA is currently the most valuable private company in the world with a market cap of over $4 trillion. Such vast resources give NVIDIA the ability to devote substantial time, money and effort into the development of its new self-driving car platform.

Even though NVIDIA is late to the self-driving car game, their numerous partnerships with other leading technology companies puts them in a strong position to market and deliver their platform ahead of others who have been working on self-driving technology for some time.

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According to Mr. Huang, Alpamayo is built on an open-source AI model, which is available for other self-driving researchers to download and utilize. Mr. Huang also said, ‘our vision is that someday every single car every single truck will be autonomous.’ The BBC reported this week that NVIDIA also plans to launch a self-driving taxi service later this year with a partner yet to be made public. 

An AI platform like Alpamayo could be the key to creating a truly autonomous vehicle. One of the limitations of current self-driving cars is that they rely on instructions from human beings who may not be in the vehicle but still have to operate the car remotely or on software that has to be connected to the internet to function.

The advantage of an AI system self-contained within an automobile is that it can make decisions about driving even if internet connectivity is lost, giving it a much greater degree of autonomy than current self-driving vehicles.

NVIDIA’s CEO went on to say that their new AI-powered self-driving car platform is built on lessons learned from human drivers, though he declined to provide any specifics as to how those lessons had been incorporated.

Another advantage for NVIDIA is that as a chip maker, it could sell its AI platform to other self-driving car makers like Tesla rather than focusing on delivering a single autonomous car to consumers. That approach could turn competitors into potential clients.

How it Affects You

If an onboard AI system like Alpamayo could operate a car or truck as well as a human driver without needing any external connections to function, then NVIDIA’s approach could deliver the world's first truly autonomous vehicle to consumers.

Mr. Huang did not specify when the new system might begin testing or operations on actual roads, but he did indicate it would be later in 2026.