Volvo Cars, Autoliv and NVIDIA collaborating on autonomous car tech

The three companies have joined forces and teamed up with Zenuity, a newly formed automotive software development joint venture equally owned by Volvo Cars and Autoliv. The group will develop next-generation self-driving car technologies with Volvo Cars having committed to selling Level 4 autonomous cars on sale by the year 2021.

Volvo Cars, Autoliv and Zenuity will use NVIDIA’s AI car computing platform as the foundation for their own advanced software development. The companies will work to utilise deep learning (a form of artificial intelligence) to recognise objects in their environment, anticipate potential threats and navigate safely.

Zenuity will provide self-driving software to Volvo Cars and Autoliv will also sell this software to third-party OEMs.

“This cooperation with NVIDIA places Volvo Cars, Autoliv and Zenuity at the forefront of the fast-moving market to develop next-generation autonomous driving capabilities and will speed up the development of Volvo’s own commercially available autonomous drive cars,” said Hakan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars.

Jensen Huang, chief executive of NVIDIA, said, “Artificial intelligence is the essential tool for solving the incredibly demanding challenge of autonomous driving. We are building on our earlier collaboration with Volvo Cars to create production-ready vehicles that will make driving safer, lead to greener cities and reduce congestion on our roads.”

Jan Carlson, chief executive of Autoliv, said, “With NVIDIA, we now have full access to the leading AI computing platform for autonomous driving. Autoliv, Volvo Cars and NVIDIA share the same vision for safe, autonomous driving. This cooperation will further advance our leading ADAS and autonomous driving offerings to the market.”