Adopted and Backed by Automotive Manufacturers and Safety Authorities, Latest Iteration to Feature DRIVE Thor on NVIDIA Blackwell Running NVIDIA DriveOS

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CES -- NVIDIA today announced that its autonomous vehicle (AV) platform, NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Hyperion, has passed industry-safety assessments by TÜV SÜD and TÜV Rheinland — two of the industry's foremost authorities for automotive-grade safety and cybersecurity. This achievement raises the bar for AV safety, innovation and performance.

DRIVE Hyperion is the industry's first and only end-to-end autonomous driving platform. It includes the DRIVE AGX system-on-a-chip (SoC) and reference board design, the NVIDIA DriveOS automotive operating system, a sensor suite, and an active safety and level 2+ driving stack.

Automotive safety pioneers such as Mercedes-Benz, JLR and Volvo Cars are adopting the platform, which is designed to be modular, so customers can easily use what they need. It is also scalable and built to be upgradeable and compatible across future DRIVE SoC generations.

Available in the first half of this year, the latest iteration of DRIVE Hyperion — designed for both passenger and commercial vehicles — will feature the high-performance DRIVE AGX Thor SoC built on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture.

"A billion vehicles driving trillions of miles each year move the world. With autonomous vehicles — one of the largest robotics markets — now here, the NVIDIA Blackwell-powered platform will shift this revolution into high gear," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "The next wave of autonomous machines will rely on physical AI world foundation models to understand and interact with the real world, and NVIDIA DRIVE is purpose-built for this new era, delivering unmatched functional safety and AI."

Driving Safety Forward: Certified Assurance for Next-Gen Vehicles
Next-generation vehicles will be increasingly software-defined, capable of receiving new features and functionality over their lifetime. Tapping into NVIDIA's 15,000 engineering years invested in vehicle safety, DRIVE Hyperion will help ensure advanced automotive systems with rich, AI-based functionalities are compliant with the automotive industry's stringent functional safety and cybersecurity standards.

NVIDIA recently received safety certifications and assessments from accredited third parties, including:

• TÜV SÜD, which granted the ISO 21434 Cybersecurity Process certification to NVIDIA for automotive SoC, platform and software engineering processes. Additionally, NVIDIA DriveOS 6.0 conforms to ISO 26262 Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) D standards, pending certification release.
• TÜV Rheinland, which performed an independent United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) safety assessment of NVIDIA DRIVE AV related to safety requirements for complex electronic systems.

In addition, NVIDIA is now accredited by the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) to provide safety and cybersecurity inspections for NVIDIA DRIVE ecosystem partners. The new NVIDIA DRIVE AI Systems Inspection Lab will help the NVIDIA DRIVE automotive ecosystem build autonomous driving software that meets the industry's evolving safety and AI standards.

NVIDIA is the first platform company to receive a comprehensive set of third-party assessments for its automotive technologies — including the NVIDIA DRIVE end-to-end self-driving platform, spanning SoC, OS, sensor architecture and level 2+ application software — as well as independent accreditation as an AI systems safety and cybersecurity inspection lab for the automotive market.

Intelligence Powered by Industry-Leading Compute
NVIDIA DRIVE Thor, the core computer for DRIVE Hyperion, is the successor to the production-proven NVIDIA DRIVE Orin. Its architecture compatibility and scalability means developers can use existing software from earlier DRIVE product generations, as well as integrate future updates, to achieve seamless development pipelines.

DRIVE Thor is based on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture and is optimized for the most demanding processing workloads, including those involving generative AI, vision language models and large language models. Its simplified architecture enhances generalization, reduces latency and boosts safety by harnessing powerful NVIDIA accelerated computing to run the end-to-end AV stack and a proven safety stack in parallel.

DRIVE Thor paves the way for the next era of AV technology, known as AV 2.0, which involves delivering humanlike autonomous driving capabilities for navigating the most complex roadway scenarios.

In addition to the DRIVE AGX in-vehicle computer, two other NVIDIA computers serve as the foundation for automotive-grade AV development: NVIDIA DGX systems for training advanced AI models and building a robust AV software stack in the cloud, and the NVIDIA Omniverse platform running on NVIDIA OVX systems for simulation and validation. These three computers, now enhanced with the new NVIDIA Cosmos world foundation model platform, are set to accelerate end-to-end AV development and mass deployment.

To learn more about NVIDIA's three-computer approach to automotive development and the Cosmos world foundation model platform along with other automotive news, tune in to Huang's CES opening keynote.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) is the world leader in accelerated computing.

For further information, contact:
Marie Labrie
Automotive
NVIDIA Corporation
mlabrie@nvidia.com

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, impact, and performance of NVIDIA's products, services, and technologies, including NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Hyperion, NVIDIA DriveOS automotive operating system, NVIDIA DRIVE AI Systems Inspection Lab, DRIVE Thor, DRIVE Orin, NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, NVIDIA DGX systems, NVIDIA Omniverse platform, NVIDIA OVX systems, and NVIDIA Cosmos; third parties adopting NVIDIA's products and technologies; with autonomous vehicles — one of the largest robotics markets — now here, the NVIDIA Blackwell-powered platform shifting this revolution into high gear; the next wave of autonomous machines relying on physical AI world foundation models to understand and interact with the real world; NVIDIA DRIVE delivering unmatched functional safety and AI; next-generation vehicles being increasingly software-defined, capable of receiving new features and functionality over their lifetime are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners' products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the most recent reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company's website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

Many of the products and features described herein remain in various stages and will be offered on a when-and-if-available basis. The statements above are not intended to be, and should not be interpreted as a commitment, promise, or legal obligation, and the development, release, and timing of any features or functionalities described for our products is subject to change and remains at the sole discretion of NVIDIA. NVIDIA will have no liability for failure to deliver or delay in the delivery of any of the products, features or functions set forth herein.

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