Nvidia rolls out array of auto partnerships

Nvidia, a computer games and artificial intelligence company, is making inroads into car development, manufacturing and in-car gaming. Ahead of his CES this week, the tech giant has announced a series of partnerships with automakers around the world.

*Mercedes-Benz is using Nvidia’s Omniverse platform to create a digital twin of its assembly plant in Rastatt, Germany. This allows the company to plan production changes and test them in a virtual environment before reorganizing the physical factory.

*Foxconn will use Nvidia’s technology to develop its own advanced vehicles and supply automakers with electronic control units based on Nvidia’s chips and sensors for highly automated driving.

* Hyundai Motor Group, Polestar and BYD will offer Nvidia’s GeForce NOW cloud gaming service in their vehicles. A specific model for the in-car game has yet to be identified, but the idea is meant to entertain not just backseat passengers, but drivers who park their electric cars to charge, Nvidia said. said Danny Shapiro, vice president of Automotive at .

The series of announcements will help demonstrate Nvidia’s role as an “end-to-end” partner for automakers, he said.

“We’re not kind of a Tier 2 chip supplier. That’s not how we do it,” Shapiro said in an interview Monday. But we tend to have a direct relationship with the automakers, and we do a lot of co-engineering and product development with them.”