NVIDIA has announced that its NVIDIA DRIVE Thor has been adopted by key companies, transforming transportation from cars and lorries to robotaxis and autonomous delivery vehicles. Its next-generation computing technology platform, which is designed to power autonomous cars and commercial vehicles, is now at the forefront of multiple businesses' adoption.

NVIDIA DRIVE Thor is an in-vehicle computing platform that has been designed to cash in on generative AI applications, which are rapidly becoming essential within the automotive industry. It succeeds the DRIVE Orin, delivering rich cockpit features, safety, and secure highly automated and autonomous driving experiences, all packaged in one single, centralised platform. The DRIVE Thor processor will integrate the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, geared towards transformer, LLM, and generative AI workloads.

Xinzhou Wu, vice president of automotive at NVIDIA, hails the transformation as a breakthrough. "Accelerated compute has led to transformative breakthroughs, including generative AI, which is redefining autonomy and the global transportation industry at large," Wu said. He noted that while the DRIVE Orin continues to be the preferred AI car computer of intelligent fleets, global mobility leaders are now looking to NVIDIA DRIVE Thor in future, AI-enabled vehicle plans.

Frontrunners in the electric vehicle industry are already implementing the generative AI technology into their development plans. The world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, BYD, in extending its existing collaboration with NVIDIA, is using DRIVE Thor for its next range of electric vehicles. More companies, including Hyper, XPENG, Li Auto and ZEEKR, have also declared their commitment to integrating DRIVE Thor into their next-generation fleets.

DRIVE Thor is also making its mark within the realm of commercial transport. Noteworthy mobility providers such as Nuro, Plus, Waabi, and WeRide are harnessing the power of DRIVE Thor in their autonomous driving solutions. With this versatile technology, NVIDIA is ensuring safe, secure driving operations for a variety of vehicle types, from long-haul trucks to robotaxis and last-mile delivery vehicles.

Production of vehicles equipped with DRIVE Thor could start as early as next year. With the cutting-edge Blackwell platform at its core, DRIVE Thor hopes to safely secure autonomous machines with its 1,000 teraflops performance capacity. This wave of generative AI-led transportation solutions is a testament to NVIDIA's continued impact on reshaping the modern digital industry.