Pony.ai has introduced a new autonomous driving compute platform developed with Nvidia for its level 4 (L4) systems and broader mobility applications.
The new domain controller is built on the Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion platform and uses Nvidia DRIVE AGX Thor with NVLink.
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The company said the system is intended to improve artificial intelligence (AI) computing capability and energy efficiency, while also supporting more advanced AI models.
According to Pony.ai, the platform is designed to meet L4 autonomous driving needs, including multi-sensor fusion, full-scenario perception and the capacity to interpret complex road conditions.
It added that the platform can be configured with different computing levels and cooling solutions, enabling deployment across a range of autonomous driving use cases.
It supports both single-chip and multi-chip set-ups.
NVLink is used to connect two DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chips with high-speed, low-latency communication.
Pony.ai said this arrangement can deliver a combined peak computing performance of 4,000 FP4 TFLOPS, which means the system can perform about four quadrillion low-precision AI calculations per second.
Pony.ai founder and CEO James Peng commented: “Our collaboration with Nvidia has supported several critical milestones in Pony.ai’s autonomous driving journey.
“The next-generation domain controller built on Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion will be a key enabler for the continued evolution of our L4 autonomous driving products and help accelerate large-scale commercialisation.”
The launch expands a collaboration between Pony.ai and Nvidia that began in 2017.
In 2022, Pony.ai launched an automotive-grade computing unit based on Nvidia DRIVE AGX Orin SoCs, which was deployed in its sixth-generation robotaxis.
In 2025, the company began mass production of an L4 robotaxi domain controller equipped with four DRIVE AGX Orin SoCs.
That controller is now being used in the company’s seventh-generation robotaxis.
Pony.ai said its full-stack in-house software and hardware capabilities enable it to optimise systems for performance, safety and cost.
Based on its seventh-generation platform, the company said it had achieved unit-economics breakeven in two major metropolitan markets in China.
Pony.ai said it plans to expand its robotaxi fleet to more than 3,000 vehicles and operate in over 20 cities globally by the end of 2026.
Nvidia automotive vice president Rishi Dhall added: “Pony.ai has been a long-standing Nvidia DRIVE customer and ecosystem partner, and we are pleased to see them build their next-generation domain controller on Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion with DRIVE Thor accelerated compute to support advanced L4 autonomous driving applications.”
