Volvo is enhancing the capabilities of its autonomous driving systems by expanding its nearly decade-long collaboration with NVIDIA. The two companies announced on Thursday that Volvo will adopt three pieces of NVIDIA's hardware and software in future models to provide an autonomous driving system capable of operating on urban roads and highways.
According to the expanded cooperation arrangement, Volvo will combine its vehicle safety systems and engineering capabilities with NVIDIA's Hyperion sensors and computing architecture, Alpamayo driving software stack, and Halos safety assessment layer.
NVIDIA's head of automotive business, Ali Kani, stated that the Alpamayo stack is redundant and diverse. It combines Alpamayo – a set of AI models, datasets, as well as simulation and development tools used for building autonomous driving software – with traditional software that utilizes machine learning and perception from cameras and radar.
Kani said, "The key is that we run both sets of stacks simultaneously, and our philosophy is to use multimodal sensors because this makes the product safer." He added that the open-source Alpamayo software has now been downloaded by over 650,000 developers.
Volvo has not disclosed the value of this collaboration, nor has it specified which model will be the first to adopt this new NVIDIA technology stack. However, Alwin Bakkenes, the person in charge of Volvo's software development, hinted at the scale of this deal and how it reflects the car company's transformation towards a "complete technology stack" approach. This technology stack is aimed not only at electric vehicles but also at plug-in hybrid and gasoline-powered cars.
Bakkenes said, "In the past, car manufacturers developed products in a way that was more along the lines of launching models one after another, working with various suppliers, etc. But we have completely changed direction and now become a company with a full range of technical capabilities." He added that Volvo will start this collaboration with a brand-new model, which "will not appear in the near future."
He said that the first vehicle equipped with this new NVIDIA technology stack will be unveiled within this decade, “and of course, this technology can continue to be expanded in the future.”
Although the relationship between Volvo and NVIDIA is not new, this expansion of cooperation reflects Volvo's desire to bring the latest autonomous driving software to all its vehicle models, not just electric cars.
All Volvo electric vehicles use NVIDIA's Orin chips, which process information from cameras, radars, and other sensors to help the vehicle understand its surroundings and make driving decisions.
Bakkenes said, "What we need to do in the future is to standardize the adoption of Hyperion more, including in terms of sensor configuration, in order to truly open up our technology stack for broader collaboration with NVIDIA."
