March 16, 2026 - Nvidia Picks Up More Customers for Automated Driving

This is the Telemetry Transportation Daily for March 16, 2026, and I'm Sam Abuelsamid, Vice President of Market Research for Telemetry.  

At Nvidia's GTC conference in San Jose this week, the world's leading developer of graphics processing chips announced several new partnerships with automakers to use some or all of its Hyperion Drive automated driving system. First up is Hyundai Motor Group, which has already been utilizing Nvidia GPUs as part of the compute stack for its Motional robotaxi joint venture. Specifics are unavailable at this stage, but will likely include Motional transitioning to the latest Nvidia Thor system on chip to power its ADS. Just last week, Motional announced a partnership with Uber to begin running its robotaxis in Las Vegas in the coming months. Over the past two years, Motional has been rebuilding its ADS around a world-driving model that utilizes more AI but still integrates more traditional control algorithms for safety. 

HMG will also be incorporating Nvidia Hyperion into some of its retail models to enable Level 2 hands-off, eyes-on capabilities to full Level 4 brain-off functionality. This will most likely appear on models from the Genesis brand first to help set it apart from more mainstream Hyundai and Kia models. 

BYD, Geely, Isuzu, and Nissan are also planning to deploy Hyperion-based Level 4 systems. While details of the programs are unclear, both BYD and Geely have used Nvidia's previous generation Orin chips for driver assist and are now expected to launch vehicles powered by Thor. Nissan previously announced plans to partner with Wayve to launch robotaxis in Japan, powered by Thor and Wayve's software. Finally, Isuzu is working with Tier 4 to develop automated buses in Japan, also using the Thor platform. 

While only some of Nvidia's customers are using its software stack, the number that are planning to use Nvidia chips for at least some automated driving continues to grow, although many Chinese automakers have moved in recent years to develop custom chips, and trade wars could disrupt Nvidia's ability to sell into the Chinese market. 

Thanks for listening.