Volvo Cars Spearheads Automotive Innovation with NVIDIA's Cutting-Edge Technology
Volvo Cars focuses on human-centric technology that enhances safety and improves life without compromising on security.
Volvo's software-defined vehicles represent this ethos, combining advanced safety, connectivity, data, and software into one integrated offering. The company adopts a balanced approach, mixing in-house development with strategic partnerships with leading global technology firms, facilitating swift progress with top-tier technology.
The new Volvo EX90 is a prime example of Volvo’s commitment to a software-first approach, built upon a centralised core compute architecture through a longstanding partnership with NVIDIA. The vehicle boasts an industry-leading core computing system powered by NVIDIA's DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC), capable of performing over 250 trillion operations per second. This powerful system manages every aspect of the vehicle, from boosting AI-driven safety and driving-assistance systems to paving the way for safe autonomous driving and ensuring an exceptional customer experience.
Volvo is deepening its collaboration with NVIDIA to fully leverage the potential of its software-defined vehicle with centralised architecture. By the end of this decade, the company plans to launch vehicles equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE Thor, achieving up to 1,000 TOPS — four times the capacity of the DRIVE Orin SoC and seven times more energy-efficient.
Integrating DRIVE Thor will secure technological advancement for Volvo’s next generation of vehicles. DRIVE Thor, which includes NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPU architecture, will enable Volvo to deploy more advanced driving assistance and safety features, enhance its autonomous driving technologies, and introduce AI-driven functionalities and in-car experiences.
"Integrating NVIDIA DRIVE Thor in our future vehicles makes our proprietary software more scalable across our product lineup, enhancing the safety of our vehicles, improving customer experiences, reducing costs, and increasing our margins," explains Jim Rowan, CEO of Volvo Cars.
Further exploring the potential of AI, Volvo Cars, through its wholly-owned software subsidiary Zenseact, is employing NVIDIA DGX systems. These systems, optimised for large-scale workloads, are pivotal in advancing the development of safe autonomous driving.
These DGX systems are used to train AI models prior to their deployment in forthcoming vehicle fleets. The purpose-built AI infrastructure and optimised software stack of the NVIDIA DGX platform significantly enhance the efficiency of training current and prospective AI models.
Volvo’s prolonged collaboration with NVIDIA and its use of the tried-and-tested NVIDIA DRIVE platform has enriched its deep understanding of safety. Training extensive foundational AI models helps the vehicles better comprehend their surroundings, substantially enhancing safety and convenience and promoting the development of autonomous driving technologies.
"The NVIDIA DGX AI supercomputer greatly enhances our AI training capabilities, establishing our in-house AI training data centre as one of the largest in the Nordics," states Anders Bell, Chief Engineering & Technology Officer at Volvo Cars. "By utilising NVIDIA technology and setting up the data centre, we can swiftly achieve high-performance AI, significantly improving the safety and quality of our products."