Nvidia expands autonomous driving platform to BYD, Geely, and Hyundai Motor Group

Nvidia Adds Major Global Automakers to Autonomous Driving Platform

Nvidia announced a significant expansion of its autonomous driving business at its GTC conference, bringing Chinese automakers BYD and Geely, along with Hyundai Motor Group, Nissan, and Isuzu onto its DRIVE Hyperion platform 1

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. The autonomous vehicle development platform combines chips, computers, sensors, and software needed for Level 4 autonomous driving, which enables vehicles to operate without human intervention under predefined conditions 3

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. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, declared at the conference that "the ChatGPT moment of self-driving cars has arrived," signaling the company's belief that scalable autonomous driving has reached a critical inflection point 2

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BYD currently uses Nvidia's chips in its manually driven cars, but under this expanded agreement, the Chinese electric vehicle giant will deploy the DRIVE Hyperion platform to build next-generation Level 4 vehicles 1

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. Geely is using Nvidia's Thor chips in its new Zeekr vehicles and already supplies Zeekr vehicles to Waymo for its US-based robotaxi service 1

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. This creates an interconnected ecosystem where Nvidia technology powers vehicles across multiple companies and geographies.

Strategic Partnership with Hyundai Motor Group Targets Level 2 to Level 4 Systems

Hyundai Motor Group's strategic partnership with Nvidia represents a comprehensive approach to next-generation autonomous driving technology 4

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. The collaboration combines Hyundai Motor Group's software-defined vehicle capabilities and large-scale fleet data with Nvidia's Artificial Intelligence and accelerated computing infrastructure 4

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. Hyundai Motor and Kia plan to integrate Nvidia autonomous driving technologies supporting Level 2 and above systems across select vehicles, delivering enhanced safety and intelligent driving capabilities 5

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The partnership enables Hyundai Motor Group to establish an integrated autonomous driving architecture scalable from Level 2 through Level 4 by using the DRIVE Hyperion platform 5

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. Nvidia will also explore expanded collaboration with Motional, Hyundai Motor Group's autonomous driving joint venture, to advance Level 4 robotaxi capabilities 4

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. Motional currently operates a pilot robotaxi service in Las Vegas and is scheduled to launch full-fledged robotaxi services there by the end of this year 5

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China-US Competition Intensifies in Autonomous Vehicle Race

The announcement that Nvidia is supplying chips and software to BYD and Geely comes amid ongoing tensions between the US and China over trade and tariffs 1

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. While China holds a substantial lead over the US in electric vehicle production, the two countries are more evenly matched in the robotaxi field, with Baidu operating commercial robotaxis in over a dozen Chinese cities compared to Waymo's approximately 3,000 vehicles operating commercially in 10 US cities 1

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. Nvidia's deals with BYD and Geely could accelerate those companies' development of self-driving systems, potentially increasing China's chances of overtaking the US in autonomous vehicle deployment 1

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Despite the geopolitical implications, Nvidia's automotive business remains relatively small compared to its AI revenue. Third quarter revenues in 2025 reached $51.2 billion, but its automotive division only generated $592 million, representing just 1.2 percent of total revenue 1

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. However, the company views autonomous vehicles as a primary growth area outside of Artificial Intelligence, with Wall Street analysts and automotive executives targeting AVs as a multitrillion-dollar growth industry 2

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Uber Partnership Expands to 28 Cities Across Four Continents

Nvidia and Uber announced an expanded partnership to launch autonomous vehicles powered by the full-stack NVIDIA DRIVE AV software across 28 cities and four continents by 2028 3

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. The rollout will begin with Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of 2027 3

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. This DRIVE Hyperion-powered fleet will tap into Nvidia Alpamayo open models and the Nvidia Halos OS to accelerate the development and deployment of safe, scalable robotaxi services worldwide 3

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. Other mobility leaders including Bolt, Grab, and Lyft are also leveraging DRIVE Hyperion to accelerate autonomous mobility initiatives 3

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New Safety Architecture and AI Models Address Edge Cases

Nvidia introduced Halos OS, a universal safety foundation for production-ready, scalable autonomy on DRIVE Hyperion 3

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. Built on ASIL D-certified DriveOS foundations, its unified, three-layer safety architecture integrates safety middleware and deployable safety applications to provide guardrails that enable reasoning-based AI systems to operate with verifiable automotive-grade integrity at scale 3

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. The company also unveiled Alpamayo 1.5, a major upgrade that expands the open portfolio of AI models with an interactive, steerable reasoning model 3

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. Since launching earlier this year, Alpamayo has been downloaded by more than 100,000 automotive developers worldwide 3

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. Ali Kani, VP and general manager of the automotive team at Nvidia, attributed the company's progress to virtual testing capabilities and simulation tools based on Omniverse, NuRec, and Cosmos, noting that their AV stack took more than 10 years to build 1

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