Volvo expands partnership with Nvidia to boost AI and autonomous driving

Swedish car manufacturer Volvo Cars has announced a new deal to expand its partnership with Nvidia Corp. to improve artificial intelligence and autonomous driving. Volvo revealed that its new EX90 EV, which is due to be launched, will be the first vehicle to incorporate Nvidia’s new software architecture.

The EX90 will come equipped with a hardware platform based on Nvidia’s DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC) for centralized computing. This system has been advertised to possess improved computing capacity to perform over 250 trillion operations per second (TOPS). 

Volvo plans to adopt the Nvidia DRIVE Thor platform

According to Volvo’s own future roadmap, the company intends to adopt Nvidia’s next-generation DRIVE Thor platform in the latter half of this decade. Nvidia has said DRIVE Thor will be four times faster than DRIVE Orin at up to 1 TOPS, enabling better autonomous driving capabilities and safety features. This system will also feature Nvidia’s Blackwell GPU architecture, which is expected to further enhance its performance.

According to Jim Rowan, the CEO of Volvo Cars, DRIVE Thor will help create more scalable software within the company while also enhancing safety, customer experience, and cost reduction.

Volvo is not limited to the vehicle hardware, as it looks to advance the cause of autonomous driving. The company plans to employ Nvidia DGX systems in AI model training, primarily through its software segment, Zenseact.

Nvidia DGX is known to be the latest in AI technology, and its integration into Volvo’s operations is a move by the company to increase the computing power needed to enhance the future of autonomous driving. Volvo and Nvidia have been working together since 2019 when both companies signed a deal to create AI for self-driving trucks.

Notably, Nvidia has been quite engaged in the AI space, committing a lot of money to AI-focused startups. Notably, Nvidia recently acquired a Tokyo-based generative AI firm, Sakana AI, which is now worth more than $1 billion. Further, it is reported that Nvidia is considering pumping $100 million into OpenAI.

Volvo adjusts financial targets due to market challenges 

Besides the technological improvements, Volvo has had to revise its financial strategies because of the changes in the market environment. The company has cut its operating profit margin goal to 7-8% from above 8% previously.

The automotive maker has also changed its revenue forecast and dropped the previous objective of reaching 550-600 billion Swedish crowns (approximately $53.5 billion-58.4 billion). However, Volvo expects the premium car segment to grow, attributing this to challenges in international trade and tariffs.

This is the second time within a year that Volvo has revised its financial targets. In January, the company revised its earlier target of selling 1.2 million cars annually and an EBIT margin of 8-10% by the mid-decade.