In a pre-CES news conference on Sunday, Nvidia Corp. announced a partnership with Uber to supply self-driving hardware for the largest U.S. ride-hailing company – sending shares to all time highs.
Nvidia ($NVDA) hit an intraday high of $225 and closed at $222, up $6.60 – resulting in a 12 month gain of 117%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq, meanwhile, were up 26.7% and 29.5% respectively over the last year.
Nvidia plans to start testing all-in-one “system on a chip” processors in cars this quarter, an effort for which Nvidia has plowed $2 billion into R&D. Uber is one of 25 customers lined up for the new hardware in their upcoming “robotaxis.”
Uber claims its autonomous cars, mostly Volvos with Nvidia hardware, have traveled over 2 million miles – with over half of that occuring in the last quarter.
Meanwhile, Google subsidiary Waymo is directly competing with Nvidia, providing self-driving hardware to Uber competitor Lyft. Waymo sued Uber following Uber’s acquisition of self-driving trucking company, Otto.
Sunday’s announcement means that Nvidia will also hel[ guide Uber’s self-driving tractor-trailers, along with non-Volvo beta cars.
As MarketWatch reports:
“Nvidia has spent more than $8 billion on R&D since a 2012 student project showed that GPUs could accelerate machine learning, leading to a booming server business and an automotive business with plenty of potential that hasn’t showed the same type of growth so far. Chief Executive Jensen Huang spent two hours Sunday evening rounding up all of Nvidia’s advances in artificial intelligence, after a brief overview of some new advances in the industry that originally made Nvidia’s name, videogame technology.
Nvidia spent the rest of its time focusing on its breakthroughs in machine learning, in both important and more whimsical ways. The examples included a deep neural network built in partnership with Walt Disney Co. DIS, -1.43% that was taught to compose music like the legendary John Williams, in honor of the new “Star Wars” movie.“
Meanwhile, Nvidia and Volkswagen are working on their own self-driving partnership, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang showing off plans in a virtual reality pre-CES presentation.
“Nvidia is demonstrating solid innovation and leadership in the self-driving car market by showcasing customers and partners like Uber and Volkswagen,” said Chris Wilder of Moor Insights. “For this industry to be successful, technology companies must address not just the safety, scalability and reliability challenges, but also the overall user experience inside and outside of the vehicle. Nvidia’s announcements at CES shows they are approaching the Autonomous Vehicle experience holistically which, in my opinion, will keep Nvidia as a leader in this burgeoning market.”
What are they not going to think of next? Might as well incorporate NVIDIA gtx titan or better bitcoin miner into these self-driving robots.
Jensen Huang is great. Really deserves to be named among the top visionary CEOs in the World…
It’s risky business, but payoff could be huge. I feel like this is one case where first to market isn’t a guaranteed advantage. But, putting the foot on the gas while they have the advantage is a smart move.
However, I sit here typing this on my laptop after just five days ago my $700 Nvidia GPU went up in smoke after one year of easy use. Never have I had that happen to an electronic device before. Covered by warranty and getting an upgrade replacement, but doesn’t make me feel so great.
Smoke and mirrors.
Reuters have reported that Apple are running the ruler over Nvidia for potential take over target. Synergies make sense and could provide vital component in Apple ecosystem rolling out future products
@Tech : Yes Both NVidia and Uber are destined to disappear and/or be amalgamated with someone larger. Neither is strong enough to survive individually and these types of announcements illustrate the weaknesses of both companies.
After the merger of their main competitor with AMD, NVidia gained a temporary reprieve via the demands of the CC revolution, purely by accident I might add, but that won’t last.
You could be correct about Apple. They are bringing $200 billion back to US shores and no doubt this is going to be used for certain strategic purchases.
Nonetheless the algos like this announcement.
Apple taking over Nvidia!!!!! Holly Molly – it freaking better be a goddam better buy than Beats. Apple would really have it over the Chinese and MD