Mercedes-Benz and Nvidia to develop self-driving vehicles

Mercedes-Benz, one of the largest manufacturers of premium passenger cars, and Nvidia, global leader in accelerated computing, plan to enter into a cooperation to create a revolutionary in-vehicle computing system and Artificial Intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure.

Starting in 2024, this will be rolled out across the fleet of next-generation Mercedes-Benz vehicles, enabling them with upgradable automated driving functions.

Working together, the companies plan to develop the most sophisticated and advanced computing architecture ever deployed in an automobile.

The new software-defined architecture will be built on the Nvidia Drive platform and will be standard in Mercedes-Benz' next-generation fleet, enabling state-of-the-art automated driving functionalities. A primary feature will be the ability to automate driving of regular routes from address to address and customers can purchase and add capabilities through over-the-air software updates.

Automated driving functions in future Mercedes-Benz cars will be powered by Nvidia's next generation Drive platform. The computer system-on-chip, called Orin, is based on the recently announced Nvidia Ampere supercomputing architecture.

The Nvidia Drive platform includes a full system software stack designed for automated driving AI applications. Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz will jointly develop the AI and automated vehicle applications that include Society of Automotive Engineers Level 2 and 3 levels, as well as automated parking functions up to Level 4.