Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) has announced that it has agreed to expand its strategic partnership with Nvidia to speed up the development and adoption of advanced autonomous driving technologies. The South Korean automaker, which includes the Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis brands, confirmed that it has decided to broaden its collaboration framework with the US chipmaker to step up the establishment of a “future autonomous vehicle ecosystem in the rapidly evolving global software-defined vehicle (SDV) and autonomous driving markets.”
HMG said that under the new agreement, both Hyundai and Kia will combine their SDV capabilities with Nvidia’s industry-leading autonomous driving technologies, to create next-generation autonomous driving solutions. The automaker said it plans to initially integrate Nvidia’s Level 2 and above autonomous driving technology in selected vehicle models, as it looks to enhance customer safety and convenience, while positioning itself at the forefront of AI-defined driving.
HMG’s majority-owned autonomous vehicle joint venture, Motional, will play a leading role in leveraging Nvidia’s technologies to “support the advancement toward Level 4 robotaxi capabilities, while accelerating technology and service capability.”
HMG said that its partnership with Nvidia is a strategic step in “accelerating the internalization of its proprietary driving AI, with data as the central driver. In the autonomous driving domain, competitive advantage is determined by both the excellence of foundation models and platforms and the continuous ability to generate and learn from high-quality, real-world driving data at scale. As Hyundai Motor and Kia continuously train their models using data collected under real-world driving conditions, HMG is positioned to significantly strengthen its autonomous driving capabilities, including the development of proprietary AI models.”
Building on Nvidia’s ‘Drive Hyperion’ platform, HMG aims to establish an integrated autonomous driving architecture scalable from Level 2 through to Level 4. Through the convergence of its in-house developed SDV architecture with Nvidia’s Drive Hyperion, the automaker aims to launch a data cycle of continuous improvement encompassing:
· Real-world driving data collection across Hyundai Motor Group's vehicle fleet
· AI model training and continuous performance improvement
· Deployment and validation in production vehicles
HMG, with the collaboration of Motional, aims to “fully internalize state-of-the-art autonomous driving technology and will simultaneously advance its internal autonomous driving technology development initiatives in parallel, ensuring continuous enhancement and strengthening its flexible global response capabilities.”
Heung-Soo Kim, head of HMG’s Global Strategy Office, said in a statement: “The expanded partnership with Nvidia marks an important milestone in realizing HMG’s vision for safe and reliable autonomous driving technology. Based on a unified, group‑wide collaborative framework, we will strengthen our differentiated technological competitiveness — from Level 2 and above autonomous driving technology to Level 4 robotaxi services.”
Rishi Dhall, vice president of Nvidia’s Automotive division, added: “The future of mobility will be built on AI and software. We’re combining HMG’s leadership in vehicle engineering with Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI to build safe, intelligent, Nvidia Drive-based autonomous driving systems — from advanced driver assistance in select production vehicles to scalable robotaxi services with Motional.”
