Nvidia has made a significant stride in the realm of autonomous vehicle technology, announcing that its Nvidia Drive AGX Hyperion platform has successfully completed safety assessments by TÜV SÜD and TÜV Rheinland. These two authorities stand as leading figures in automotive-grade safety and cybersecurity evaluation. This advancement was revealed during Jensen Huang's keynote speech at the CES 2025 trade show in Las Vegas, where he outlined the key components of the Drive Hyperion platform and its implications for the future of autonomous vehicles.
The Nvidia Drive AGX Hyperion is touted as an end-to-end autonomous driving solution, incorporating a system-on-a-chip (SoC), a reference board design, an automotive operating system known as DriveOS, a comprehensive sensor suite, and an active safety driving stack capable of Level 2+ automation. Major automotive players, including Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and Volvo Cars, are beginning to implement this state-of-the-art technology within their next-generation vehicles.
The upcoming version of Drive Hyperion, scheduled for release in the first half of this year, is engineered for both passenger and commercial vehicles. It is powered by the latest Drive AGX Thor SoC, which utilises Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture. During the keynote, Huang remarked, "A billion vehicles driving trillions of miles each year move the world. With autonomous vehicles — one of the largest robotics markets — now here, the Nvidia Blackwell-powered platform will shift this revolution into high gear." He also emphasized the critical role of advanced AI models in enabling these vehicles to better understand and interact with their environments.
To enhance the safety and security of its technology, Nvidia applied its extensive research and development investment—20,000 engineering years dedicated to vehicle safety. The TÜV SÜD agency has granted Nvidia’s processes a certification under the ISO 21434 Cybersecurity Process, while Nvidia DriveOS 6.0 is anticipated to meet the ISO 26262 Automotive Safety Integrity Level D standards, pending the release of certification. Meanwhile, TÜV Rheinland characterised Nvidia’s Drive AV suite in an independent assessment, aligning its safety requirements with those established for complex electronic systems.
A notable element of this initiative is Nvidia's establishment of the Drive AI Systems Inspection Lab, now accredited by the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB). This lab is intended to assist Nvidia’s partners in adhering to evolving standards for safety and AI in the automotive sector.
The foundation of Nvidia Drive Hyperion includes the newly introduced Drive Thor, which builds upon the existing Nvidia Drive Orin architecture. This new technological framework allows developers to use pre-existing software from earlier product generations, ensuring that future updates can be integrated seamlessly into their systems. The Drive Thor has been designed for high-performance demands, especially in areas requiring generative AI, vision language models, and large-scale language models.
Nvidia has highlighted that the capabilities afforded by Drive Thor will unlock the potential for AV 2.0. In this next phase, vehicles are expected to mimic human-like driving behaviours, particularly in navigating intricate roadway situations. Complementing these advancements, Nvidia's ecosystem also includes DGX systems for AI model training and the Nvidia Omniverse platform for simulation and validation, all powered by the new Nvidia Cosmos world foundation model platform.
This innovative consolidation of technology positions Nvidia at the forefront of the automotive industry, pushing the envelope on the development and deployment of autonomous systems in both consumer and commercial vehicle sectors. The strategic implementations and certifications underscore a commitment to elevating safety standards while advancing the operational capabilities of autonomous vehicles, as the industry transitions towards an increasingly software-defined future.
Source: Noah Wire Services