GM Taps Nvidia To Boost Its Self-Driving Projects

General Motors is partnering with Nvidia to enhance its self-driving and manufacturing capabilities by leveraging Nvidia's AI chips, software, and simulation tools. 'GM says it will apply several of Nvidia's products to its business, such as the Omniverse 3D graphics platform which will run simulations on virtual assembly lines with an eye on reducing downtime and improving efficiency,' reports The Verge. 'The automaker also plans to equip its next-generation vehicles with Nvidia's 'AI brain' for advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving. And it will employ the chipmaker's AI training software to make its vehicle assembly line robots better at certain tasks, like precision welding and material handling.' From the report: GM already uses Nvidia's GPUs to train its AI software for simulation and validation. Today's announcement was about expanding those use cases into improving its manufacturing operations and autonomous vehicles, GM CEO Mary Barra said in a statement. (Dave Richardson, GM's senior VP of Software and Services Engineering will be joining NVIDIA's Norm Marks for a fireside chat at the conference.) 'AI not only optimizes manufacturing processes and accelerates virtual testing but also helps us build smarter vehicles while empowering our workforce to focus on craftsmanship,' Barra said. 'By merging technology with human ingenuity, we unlock new levels of innovation in vehicle manufacturing and beyond.'

GM will adopt Nvidia's in-car software products to build next-gen vehicles with autonomous driving capabilities. That includes the company's Drive AGX system-on-a-chip (SoC), similar to Tesla's Full Self-Driving chip or Intel's Mobileye EyeQ. The SoC runs the 'safety-certified' DriveOS operating system, built on the Blackwell GPU architecture, which is capable of delivering 1,000 trillion operations per second (TOPS) of high-performance compute, the company says. In a briefing with reporters, Ali Kani, Nvidia's vice president and general manager of automotive, described the chipmaking company's automotive business as still in its 'infancy,' with the expectation that it will only bring in $5 billion this year. (Nvidia reported over $130 billion in revenue in 2024 for all its divisions.)

Nvidia's chips are in less than 1 percent of the billions of cars on the road today, he added. But the future looks promising. The company is also announcing deals with Tier 1 auto supplier Magna, which helped build Sony's Afeela concept, to use Drive AGX in the company's next-generation advanced driver assist software. 'We believe automotive is a trillion dollar opportunity for Nvidia,' Kani said.

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