GM partners with Silicon Valley chipmaker Nvidia on AI, self-driving
- General Motors is expanding its partnership with Nvidia to incorporate AI technology in its manufacturing plants and vehicles.
- GM also plans to use Nvidia's Drive AGX hardware in its advanced driver-assistance systems to speed up the development of autonomous vehicle technologies.
General Motors is partnering with Silicon Valley tech firm Nvidia on artificial intelligence and accelerated cloud-to-car computation, the companies announced Tuesday at Nvidia's annual GTC conference in San Jose, California.
GM already uses Nvidia's chips to train artificial intelligence models and is now expanding the partnership to use computing chips to train robotics platforms for precision welding and material handling and transport. The goal is to free up GM's workforce in the plant to focus on carmaking, GM CEO Mary Barra said in a statement.
“GM has enjoyed a longstanding partnership with Nvidia, leveraging its (graphics processing units) across our operations,” Barra said. “AI not only optimizes manufacturing processes and accelerates virtual testing but also helps us build smarter vehicles while empowering our workforce to focus on craftsmanship.”
One project the expanded partnership will enable is producing “digital twins” of real assembly lines to improve automotive assembly plant design and operations and reduce downtime on the line, GM also said.
The chipmaker's annual GTC conference is the largest artificial intelligence conference in the world, featuring about 2,000 speakers and 400 exhibits that focus on the latest developments in AI. The topics at this year's event include agentic AI — advanced artificial intelligence systems like chatbots designed to act without direct human intervention — robotics and accelerated computing.
In addition to other business uses, GM plans to install Nvidia's Drive AGX hardware in upcoming advanced driver-assistance systems. The chips deliver up to 1,000 trillion operations per second of high-performance computation, GM said, which can speed the development and deployment of autonomous vehicle technologies.
The partnership announcement comes on the heels of industry leaders calling on President Donald Trump's administration to accelerate self-driving vehicle deployment.
Jackie Charniga covers General Motors for the Free Press. Reach her at jcharniga@freepress.com.