The companies said March 17 that they began joint development of next-generation autonomous driving solutions after agreeing on March 16 (local time) to combine Hyundai Motor and Kia’s software-defined vehicle, or SDV, capabilities with Nvidia’s autonomous driving technology.
Hyundai Motor and Kia, which are developing SDVs based on their quality and safety philosophy, will apply some of Nvidia’s Level 2 or higher autonomous driving technology to select models first.
Over the mid-to-long term, the partners plan to build a cooperation framework that extends to Level 4 robotaxis. They said they will step up broad discussions to advance Level 4 robotaxi technology centered on Motional, their U.S.-based autonomous driving joint venture, and strengthen competitiveness in technology and services.
Hyundai Motor Group described the expanded work with Nvidia as a strategic decision to accelerate in-house development of autonomous driving technology.
The group said it will adopt Nvidia Drive Hyperion to build a new integrated architecture that can scale from Level 2 to Level 4 automated driving.
Hyperion is a reference architecture that bundles hardware essential for autonomous driving, including high-performance central processing units, graphics processing units, sensors and cameras.
Hyundai Motor Group said combining the standardized architecture with its accumulated experience as a global top-three automaker will help it develop an optimized SDV architecture in-house.
It said the Hyperion adoption will support a “virtuous cycle” of data collection across video, language and behavior; AI training and performance improvements; deployment in real vehicles; and better data quality.
The group said it will actively use Nvidia’s broad data and AI technologies to integrate data gathered across the group into a single training pipeline.
In the long run, it expects high-performance AI to collect, learn from and structure high-quality real-world road data on its own, improving the group’s competitiveness in autonomous driving.
Ultimately, Hyundai Motor Group said it plans to strengthen its global responsiveness in autonomous driving by internalizing top-tier technology, continuing collaboration with global tech companies and sustaining its own technology development.
“The expanded partnership with Nvidia will be an important momentum for realizing the safe and reliable autonomous driving technology Hyundai Motor Group is pursuing,” said Kim Heung-soo, vice president in charge of the group’s global strategy organization. “Based on a one-team collaboration system across the group, we will secure differentiated technological competitiveness, from Level 2 and higher autonomous driving technology to Level 4 robotaxi services.”
Rishi Dhall, vice president of Nvidia’s automotive division, said the companies are building “a safe and intelligent autonomous driving system” by combining Hyundai Motor Group’s vehicle engineering with Nvidia’s computing and AI technology. “We will continue our collaboration, from advanced driver assistance functions at Level 2 and above to robotaxis,” he said.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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