BYD, Xpeng, Li Auto, Zeekr, GAC Aion to use Nvidia Drive Thor platform for self-driving, AI-powered tech

At Nvidia’s recent GPU Technology Conference (GTC), the technology company announced it is expanding its partnerships with various automakers that are pushing for more self-driving cars as well as infotainment systems augmented by artificial intelligence (AI).

Several automakers already use some version of Nvidia Drive in their current and future cars, and at this year’s GTC, Nvidia revealed its new Drive Thor system on chip (SoC) will feature an automotive enhanced (AE) version of the Blackwell-based Arm Neoverse Poseidon V3 CPU.

First announced back in September 2022, Drive Thor succeeds Drive Orin in Nvidia’s product line-up and promises to deliver 1,000 teraflops of performance while reducing overall system costs. It is up to automakers to decide now many units of the SoC it uses in their cars as well as how to apportion the platform’s 1,000 teraflops to the autonomous driving pipeline, in-cabin AI and infotainment and any other driver assistance systems.

Nvidia points out Drive Thor features 8-bit floating point (FP8) precision that introduces a new data type for automotive. Traditionally, developers see a loss in accuracy when moving from 32-bit floating point to 8-bit integer data formats, so FP8 precision eases this transition, making it possible for developers to transfer data types without sacrificing accuracy.

The SoC can also partition tasks for autonomous driving and in-vehicle infotainment without needing multiple compute units. This allows for concurrent time-critical processes to run without interruption, and with just one computer, the vehicle can simultaneously run Linux, QNX and Android.

Chinese automakers such as Li Auto and Geely’s Zeekr have previously announced they will build their future vehicles with Drive Thor. More have committed to the platform at GTC, including BYD that will use the platform when building its next-generation EV fleets.

Others include Hyper, a brand under GAC Aion, that will roll out Drive Thor-equipped vehicles in 2025, while the platform will also be used as the AI brain for Xpeng’s future EVs. Away from passenger vehicles, trucking, robotaxis and goods delivery vehicle makers such as Nuro, Plus, Waabi and WeRide have also chosen Drive Thor to power their autonomous driving systems.

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