Nvidia says Chinese companies BYD and Geely will use its robotics platform

Nvidia has added two leading Chinese automakers, BYD and Geely, to its robotaxi program, as the chipmaker seeks to make its mark on the growing self-driving car market around the world.

At the GTC conference today, Nvidia announced that BYD and Geely, as well as Isuzu and Nissan, will use the chipmaker’s Drive Hyperion platform, which combines the chips, computers, sensors and software needed to develop Level 4 autonomous vehicles.

BYD currently uses Nvidia chips in its manually operated vehicles, and now, under this expanded agreement, it will use the company’s Hyperion platform to build its next generation of Level 4 vehicles. Meanwhile, Geely is said to be using Nvidia’s Thor chips in its new Zeekr vehicles. Geely also supplies Zeekr vehicles to Waymo for its US-based robotaxi service. Waymo also uses Nvidia products, according to Ali Kani, vice president and general manager of Nvidia’s automotive team, in a briefing with reporters. “Waymo uses us in the car and the cloud,” Caney said.

News comes that Nvidia is supplying chips and software to two of China’s largest automakers Ongoing tensions between the United States and China On trade and customs tariffs. The company’s chips, especially those used in data centers to train artificial intelligence models, have been the subject of intense negotiations between the two countries, with the Trump administration. Recently approved for sale From Nvidia H200 chips from Chinese companies.

It’s clear that China is far ahead of the United States in electric vehicle production, but the two countries are more on equal footing in the area of ​​robotaxis. For example, Baidu operates commercial robotaxis in more than a dozen Chinese cities. (Waymo has nearly 3,000 vehicles in commercial operation in 10 U.S. cities.)

Nvidia’s agreement with BYD and Geely could significantly accelerate those companies’ development of autonomous vehicles, increasing China’s chances of overtaking the United States. Some lawmakers in Congress have pushed to pass long-awaited self-driving vehicle legislation, based on a big premise Maintaining technological leadership over China.

Nvidia is seeking to raise its position as a leader in autonomous driving. But while the company has It has long supplied major automakers With chips and software for driver-assistance systems, its automotive business is still relatively small compared to the billions it makes from artificial intelligence. Its third-quarter 2025 revenue was $51.2 billion, but its automotive division generated just $592 million, or 1.2 percent of total revenue.

But Nvidia doesn’t just supply Chinese companies with its AV technology. It will also sell its Hyperion platform to Nissan, which also uses robotaxi software developed by Wayve. It is working with Isuzu and Tier IV to design Tier 4 buses using its system based on the next-generation Drive AGX Thor chip.

In addition, Nvidia said Lyft will use its Hyperion platform to develop its own robots, using vehicles and software provided by different companies. Lyft also said it will use Nvidia’s technology to enhance its “machine learning capabilities, accelerate enterprise operations across ridesharing, and scale autonomous vehicles.”

Nvidia already has a partnership with Lyft’s main competitor, Uber. The two companies are working together to launch a global network of robotaxis, with the goal of deploying a fleet of 100,000 vehicles by 2027. On Monday, the company provided an update on that agreement, saying it now includes 28 markets across four continents by 2028 — with Los Angeles and San Francisco taking first place in early 2027. Nvidia products.

Kanye cited Nvidia’s virtual testing capabilities, as well as its open source suite of AI models called Alpamayo, as a reason it has been able to make so much progress despite lacking much of the advantage of Waymo and Tesla in real-world mileage.

“It has taken more than 10 years to build our autonomous vehicle portfolio, but our generational leap was created through general reasoning models like Alpamayo, as well as synthetic data generation and testing capabilities based on Omniverse, NuRec and Cosmos,” said Kani.

During the press conference, Kanye was asked how many companies are developing their Tier 4 vehicles on Nvidia products. “I think it’s almost all of them,” he said, running off the names of Waymo, Nuro, Waabi, Zoox, Wayve, Momenta, Pony, WeRide, Baidu, DeepRoute and ZYT. “I’m very proud of that,” he added.

With more and more robo-taxis appearing on the road, people are on edge about safety. Tesla vehicles operating in Level 2 have been involved in hundreds of accidents, including 23 injuries and at least two deaths. Waymo vehicles have been recorded violating traffic laws around school buses, and sometimes getting stuck at intersections, causing major traffic jams.

Nvidia’s answer to the problem of so-called edge cases is to roll out a new product called Halos OS to help its Tier 4 partners build secure systems. Kanye described Halos OS as a “safety buffer” for self-driving systems that will “step in” if AI models are about to make unsafe decisions.

“We help our partners build a secure architecture that we can analyze for every function and make sure that if any computer or any sensor fails, the system is still designed to take you to a safe place,” he said.