June 27, 2017—Autoliv and Volvo will utilize their newly-formed automotive software development joint venture, Zenuity, and work together with NVIDIA to develop self-driving car technologies, with a target to bring Level 4 autonomous driving to the market by 2021.
As part of the agreement Autoliv, Volvo, and Zenuity will use NVIDIA's AI car computing platform as the foundation for their own advanced software development, bringing together two automotive safety companies with one of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies.
"We now have full access to the leading computing platform for autonomous driving. Autoliv, Volvo Cars and NVIDIA share the same vision for safe, autonomous driving," said Jan Carlson, chairman, president and CEO of Autoliv. "This cooperation will further advance our leading ADAS and autonomous driving product and solution offerings to the market."
"This cooperation with NVIDIA places Volvo, Autoliv and Zenuity at the forefront of the fast moving market to develop next generation autonomous driving capabilities and will speed up the development of Volvo's own commercially available autonomous drive cars," said Håkan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars.
Autoliv, Volvo Car Corporation, Zenuity, and NVIDIA will work together to develop systems that can utilize deep learning—a form of artificial intelligence—to recognize objects in their environment, anticipate potential threats and navigate safely.
These systems can compare real-time situational awareness with a known high-definition map, enabling them to plan a safe route and drive precisely along it, adjusting to ever-changing circumstances. They also perform other critical functions such as stitching camera inputs to create a complete surround-view of the car.
The cooperation with NVIDIA will complement Zenuity's existing mission to provide Autoliv autonomous vehicle related software to third party OEMs using Autoliv's established and broad sales, marketing and distribution network and to provide Volvo Car Corporation with self-driving software for its own vehicles.
