Volvo Expands Nvidia Partnership for Automated Driving System
Swedish automaker Volvo is expanding its nearly decade-long partnership with US tech company Nvidia to bring an automated driving system to its future vehicles. The first model with the new technology is due within this decade.
Automaker Volvo and US technology company Nvidia announced an expanded partnership on Thursday. Volvo will use three Nvidia products in its future vehicles to build an automated driving system able to navigate both urban streets and highways. The move means the latest automated driving software is meant to reach not only Volvo's electric cars, but also its plug-in hybrids and gas-powered models.
What will be used
Volvo will combine its own safety systems and engineering with Nvidia's Hyperion sensor and compute architecture, the Alpamayo driving software stack and the Halos safety evaluation layer.
Ali Kani, who heads Nvidia's automotive division, said the Alpamayo stack is redundant and diverse. It pairs Alpamayo, a family of AI models, datasets, and simulation and development tools for building autonomous-driving software, with classical software that relies on machine learning plus camera and radar perception. Both stacks run at the same time, and Kani said using multiple types of sensors makes the product safer. He added that the open-source Alpamayo software has been downloaded by more than 650,000 developers.
What remains unknown
Volvo did not disclose the value of the deal or which model will be first to get the new technology. Alwin Bakkenes, Volvo's head of software development, said the company has moved away from car-line-based development with various suppliers and become a full tech stack company. The partnership will begin with a brand new vehicle that "will come in the not-too-near future," though within the decade.
All of Volvo's battery-electric vehicles already use Nvidia's Orin computer chip, which processes data from cameras, radar and other sensors so a vehicle can understand its surroundings and make driving decisions. Bakkenes said Volvo plans to standardize more on Hyperion in future, including the sensor set, to open up the stack for a wider partnership with Nvidia.
