Volvo Cars has expanded its partnership with Nvidia to integrate the DRIVE Orin chip in its upcoming EX90 electric vehicle, marking a major milestone in the development of AI-based autonomous driving.
Volvo officially announced the partnership on September 5, with a focus on improving self-driving capabilities and optimizing AI features. Nvidia’s DRIVE Orin chip system, capable of processing up to 250 million operations per second (TOPS), will power the EX90’s advanced AI and autonomous driving features.
Moving beyond current technology, Volvo and Nvidia plan to integrate Nvidia’s next-generation DRIVE Thor platform in the second half of this decade. With a processing capacity of up to 1 TOPS, four times that of DRIVE Orin, and using the advanced Blackwell GPU architecture, DRIVE Thor promises to improve performance, expanding the development potential for autonomous and safe driving on Volvo’s vehicle lines.
According to Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars, the DRIVE Thor platform will not only improve user experience and safety, but also help reduce manufacturing costs and expand flexible software development capabilities.
In addition to hardware upgrades, the collaboration between Volvo and Nvidia also extends to AI training. Volvo will use Nvidia DGX systems to develop AI models through Zenseact software, demonstrating the company's strong commitment to the future of fully autonomous vehicles.
The partnership, which began in 2019, initially focused on developing AI for self-driving trucks and has now expanded to passenger cars. Despite challenges from the market and financial goals, Volvo has maintained its long-term investment strategy in technology, especially AI and autonomous vehicles, by deepening its partnership with Nvidia.