Title: Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA Team Up to Boost Autonomous Truck Technology
Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA are joining forces to usher in a new era of transportation with a long-term strategic partnership. The goal is to bring driverless trucks to the masses at an unprecedented scale, leveraging NVIDIA's advanced DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC).
Aurora, the self-driving technology innovator, aims to make transportation safer, more accessible, and more efficient than ever before. Their Aurora Driver, an SAE Level 4 autonomous driving system, is equipped to operate various vehicle types, from cargo haulers to ride-hailing passenger vehicles.
Chris Urmson, Aurora's CEO and co-founder, shares his excitement, stating, "Delivering one driverless truck is monumental. Deploying thousands will change the way we live." NVIDIA's prowess in accelerated computing further strengthens Aurora's ecosystem and ability to deliver safe and reliable driverless trucks at scale.
Aruna Anand, President & CEO, Automotive, Continental North America, echoes Urmson's sentiments, emphasizing, "Developing, industrializing, and manufacturing powerful self-driving hardware at commercial scale requires unique and unparalleled expertise." Continental's collaboration with Aurora and NVIDIA positions them at the forefront of cutting-edge technology and drives significant value to their business.
NVIDIA's DRIVE Thor system will power the primary computer of the Aurora Driver, enabling it to quickly adapt to new operating domains. With NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture, DRIVE Thor accelerates critical inference tasks for autonomous vehicles, helping them understand and navigate their environment.
While Aurora is in the final stages of validating the Aurora Driver for public roads, production samples of DRIVE Thor will be available in the first half of 2025. Continental is also developing a specialized fallback system and a cost-efficient generation of Aurora Driver hardware for high-volume manufacturing, with the manufacturing process set to commence in 2027.
As the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show approaches, Aurora and Continental showcase an early prototype of the Aurora Driver hardware integrated with a Volvo VNL Autonomous vehicle. This represents a significant leap towards full commercial deployment of autonomous trucking, with Aurora's driverless trucking service slated to launch in Texas in April 2025.
The industry seems to be heading towards an autonomous driving revolution, with other companies like Plus, Volvo Group, Waymo, WeRide, and Zoox exhibiting their technology at CES 2025. Meanwhile, ride-hailing with driverless vehicles is gaining momentum, and Aurora's plans to cover both trucking and rail-hailing make them stand out in the U.S. market.
Sources:
- Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA Partner to Deploy Driverless Trucks at Scale
- The Long, Bumpy Road to Deploying Driverless Trucks at Scale
- Aurora, Continental and Nvidia announce partnership at CES
- NVIDIA Enters Autonomous Driving Partnerships
The partnership between Aurora, Continental, and NVIDIA aims to revolutionize autonomous trucking, with the goal of bringing driverless trucks to the supply chain on a massive scale. With NVIDIA's DRIVE Thor system powering Aurora's autonomous trucks, we can expect to see a significant increase in the use of autonomous trucks in the near future, potentially reshaping the entire supply chain industry.
