Hyundai teams up with Nvidia to advance the development of autonomous driving and other AI-based projects

Hyundai, the South Korean automotive giant, has sealed a strategic alliance with Nvidia, the American company that no longer wants to limit itself to being a mere chip manufacturer and aims to become a relevant player in the field of AI. Together, the two companies will drive advances in the development of autonomous driving and in the creation of smart production plants in which robotics plays a fundamental role.

This collaboration is announced shortly after Nvidia revealed similar agreements with Uber, Stellantis and Foxconn to develop robotaxis, and confirmed that Mercedes-Benz and Lucid will integrate its technology into luxury cars with Level 4 autonomous driving. Now, Hyundai Motor Group did not want to be left behind, also jumping on the innovation bandwagon to focus on the development of advanced mobility solutions, the optimization of production plants and other advances related to the semiconductor sector.

The project has the backing of the South Korean government and will form part of a national AI cluster, with an estimated investment of 3 billion dollars at current exchange rates. This ecosystem will include a Physical AI Applications Center managed by Hyundai, an Nvidia Technology Center and several data centers specialized in the region.

No one wants to miss the AI train

The South Korean government is convinced that the combination of the country’s solid manufacturing base with Nvidia’s cutting-edge AI infrastructure will generate a mutually beneficial collaboration model for local companies and accelerate digital transformation across multiple industrial sectors.

For his part, Jensen Huang, founder and current CEO of Nvidia, has not hesitated to state that AI will revolutionize every aspect of the industry in the coming years, from vehicle design and production to robotics and autonomous driving. Together with Hyundai, one of the world’s most important suppliers of mobility solutions, the head of Nvidia is convinced that they will make progress in building smart production plants that will define the future of the automotive sector.

At the core of this alliance, Hyundai will create an “AI factory” based on 50,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs. This advanced computing infrastructure will be responsible for managing the entire “AI lifecycle”. That is, data collection, training, as well as fine-tuning and large-scale inference. Nvidia calls these platforms “AI factories” because of their ability to generate value from information.

With technologies such as Nvidia Drive AGX Thor, DGX, Omniverse and Cosmos, Hyundai will develop digital twins of its factories to integrate robotics and optimize processes. It will also recreate driving environments to run simulations, thereby accelerating the refinement of new autonomous driving systems.