Volvo & NVIDIA Announce a New Partnership to Develop Autonomous Vehicles
【Summary】Volvo Trucks and chipmaker Nvidia today announced a new partnership in which the two companies will work together developing commercial autonomous trucks using hardware and software developed by Nvidia.

Volvo Trucks and chipmaker Nvidia today announced a new partnership in which the two companies will work together developing commercial autonomous trucks using hardware and software developed by Nvidia.
At its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo Group announced today that will use NVIDIA's DRIVE end-to-end autonomous driving platform to train, test and deploy self-driving AI-powered commercial vehicles.
"This is the largest commercial vehicle and high-tech collaboration that has ever been announced." said NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during a conference call today.
"Our two industries have been separate since their founding," he added. "Today we announced one partnership to develop the future together. For the first time, we can imagine supplying AI for something that wasn't possible before, the automation of transportation."
Volvo's partnership with NVIDIA will focus on the development of a flexible, scalable autonomous driving system, which is planned to be used first in commercial pilots and later in commercial offerings from the Volvo Group.
To facilitate the new partnership, Nvidia and Volvo are co-locating engineering teams in Gothenburg and Silicon Valley. The two companies will build upon Nvidia's robust DRIVE AGX Pegasus platform for in-vehicle AI computing. Pegasus includes an entire software stack for 360-degree sensor processing, perception, map localization and path planning.
They will also test and validate these systems using the NVIDIA DRIVE hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform.
NVIDIA's DRIVE AGX Pegasus platform is one of the most advanced in-vehicle AI processors. It achieves an unprecedented 320 TOPS of deep-learning calculations with an architecture built on two NVIDIA Xavier processors, as well as two TensorCore GPUs. This high-performance AI-based system is designed to safely handle fully autonomous driving.
Applying autonomous technology to an entire lineup of trucks and the potential benefits become enormous. The autonomous vehicles can make a wide variety of industries more efficient, with vehicles that can work continuously and travel farther.
Huang called the Volvo Group partnership "a landmark for the trucking industry" which will lead to the future of transportation.
The demands of online shopping and the explosion of e-commerce are putting even greater stress on the world's transport systems and many of these challenges, such as a shortage of drivers industry-wide, can be addressed by deploying autonomous trucks.
According to consultancy firm KPMG, more than 35 million packages worldwide are delivered each day, which is growing up to 28% percent annually. By 2040, delivery services will have to travel another 78 billion miles each year to handle goods ordered online.
Aside from being safer, autonomous trucks can be more fully utilized. The trucks can operate 24 hours a day, speeding up delivery times while bringing down the annual cost of logistics in the U.S. by 45% — between $85 billion and $125 billion, according to experts at consulting firm McKinsey.
The Nvidia DRIVE Constellation simulator creates realistic enviorments like this to test autonomous driving software.
Testing Autonomous Driving in Simulation for Safety
For added safety, Volvo Group will be utilizing NVIDIA DRIVE Constellation to test and validate AVs, ensuring they can handle diverse operating challenges. Constellation uses photorealistic simulation to create a real-world environment to test autonomous software. It is capable of generating billions of qualified miles of autonomous vehicle testing, all in the safety of a simulated environment.
By leveraging hardware-in-the-loop simulation, the companies can test actual autonomous driving systems on the exact same hardware and software that will run in the vehicle on the road, at a significantly greater scale.
"If we are to succeed in the future with the speed, quality and safety, and to gain benefits of autonomous driving, we need to partner up with the best guys. In this world of unknowns, you need a partnership built on trust." said Volvo Group CEO Martin Lundstedt.
The partnership is the latest example of an traditional automaker partnering with a Silicon Valley tech company to advance autonomous driving development.
"Partnership is the new leadership" said Huang.
The collaboration between Nvidia and Volvo begins immediately. However, the two companies did not say when the first of the autonomous trucks will hit the road.
Financial terms of the deal were also not disclosed.
-
Tesla Challenger NIO Inc Reports its Highest-Ever Monthly Sales in June
-
Tesla Rival XPeng Inc. to Start Deliveries of its New Flagship G9 Electric SUV in September, CEO Confirms After Sharing New Details
-
Valeo Signs Major Deal with BMW to Supply Advanced Driver Assist Hardware for the Automaker's Forthcoming 'Neue Klasse' EV Platform
-
EV Charging Provider Electrify America Raises $450 Million, Siemens to Become a Minority Shareholder
-
Electric Truck Maker Rivian Opens the First Fast Chargers in Colorado for its Nationwide ‘Adventure Network’
-
Volkswagen Unveils the 385-Mile Range ID Aero Concept, a Preview of its First Electric Sedan that Will Be Sold in the U.S., Europe and China
-
Qualcomm and its Industry Partners Demonstrate C-V2X Technology in Georgia That Ensures School Buses and Fire Trucks Never Get Stuck at Red Lights
-
Tesla's Battery Supplier CATL Unveils its New ‘Qilin’ Battery That Can Deliver 600+ Miles of Range to EVs
- Rivian Announces Additional Delay, Showcases Off-Road 'Sand Mode'
- Chrysler Parent Stellantis is Making a US$2.8 Billion Investment in its Canadian Operations to Accelerate the Production of Electric Vehicles
- Nissan’s First EV With Solid-State Batteries Coming in 2028
- Stellantis and Samsung SDI to Invest up to $3 Billion to Build a EV Battery Factory in Indiana
- The NIO ET7 Will Come Standard With an Advanced Dolby Atmos-Powered Sound System Co-Developed With Audio Pioneer Dirac
- Researchers at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea Say They’ve Uncovered the Key to Safer EV Batteries
- Polestar Shares the First Image of the Polestar 3 Electric SUV Ahead of its October Debut
- FCA to Pay $300 Million Fine for Emissions-Cheating Vehicles
- Mercedes-Benz to Use Vehicle Sensor Data to Monitor Road Conditions in Real-Time in a New Large-Scale Pilot in the Netherlands
- Elon Musk's Newly Acquired Stake in Twitter is Even Bigger Than its Co-founder and Former CEO Jack Dorsey