The world's most valuable company has unveiled new technology to be used in self-driving cars, with lofty plans for autonomous vehicles to be released in the coming months and years.
Nvidia, which recently became the first company in the world to have a valuation of $5trillion (£3.7trillion), announced the new "Alpamayo" technology that will be used in self-driving vehicles.
CEO Jensen Huang said the technology would provide "reasoning" to autonomous vehicles, ultimately expanding how many scenarios in which the vehicle can be used.
Mr Huang claimed that the Alpamayo technology would "think through rare scenarios, drive safely in complex environments, and explain their driving decisions".
TRENDING
Stories
Videos
Your Say
Nvidia is working with Mercedes to produce a driverless car powered by Alpamayo, with plans for this to be released in the United States soon.
There are further stretch goals for the vehicle to be rolled out across Europe and Asia in the near future.
Alpamayo is an open-source AI model, allowing researchers to access the code and retrain it for free.
Speaking to the CES Expo crowd in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mr Huang said: "Our vision is that someday, every single car, every single truck, will be autonomous."
Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang confirmed that its technology would be used in self-driving vehicles, starting with the Mercedes-Benz CLA
|GETTY/REUTERS
"It drives so naturally because it learned directly from human demonstrators, but in every single scenario... it tells you what it's going to do, and it reasons about what it's about to do."
Mercedes-Benz also showcased its new CLA, which will feature the MB.DRIVE technology, designed in partnership between the automaker and Nvidia.
As part of the partnership, Mercedes-Benz will begin rolling out Nvidia's AI, full-stack DRIVE AV software in its vehicles.
The German automaker said driving assistance and navigation would "merge to create a completely new and safe driving experience" through the MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO technology.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spoke about autonomous vehicles during the company's keynote address at CES 2026 in Las Vegas
|REUTERS
The CLA will come equipped with Level 2 autonomous assistance, allowing motorists to navigate through city streets without touching the steering wheel.
Putting fears at ease, the CLA achieved a five-star European New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) safety rating.
The safety organisation reported that the MB.DRIVE technology was crucial for accident mitigation and avoidance, helping it achieve such a score.
Ali Kani, vice president of automotive at Nvidia, said: "As the automotive industry embraces physical AI, Nvidia is the intelligence backbone that makes every vehicle programmable, updatable and perpetually improving through data and software.
The MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO technology will be available in the United States starting with the all-new Mercedes-Benz CLA
|MERCEDES-BENZ
"Starting with Mercedes-Benz and its incredible new CLA, we're celebrating a stunning achievement in safety, design, engineering and AI-powered driving that will turn every car into a living, learning machine."
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also told the CES audience that the company's next generation of chips is "in full production".
The 62-year-old said the new Nvidia chips would be able to deliver five times the AI-computing power of the previous chips when used in chatbots and other AI apps.
He also debuted the Vera Rubin platform. This is made of six separate Nvidia chips and can improve the efficiency of generating "tokens" by 10 times.