LAS VEGAS, Nev. — Aurora, Continental and NVIDIA have announced a long-term strategic partnership to deploy driverless trucks at scale, powered by the next-generation NVIDIA DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC).
“Delivering one driverless truck will be monumental. Deploying thousands will change the way we live,” said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder at Aurora. “NVIDIA is the market leader in accelerated computing, and they’ll strengthen our ecosystem of partners and our ability to deliver safe and reliable driverless trucks to our customers at scale.”
According to a media release, NVIDIA’s DRIVE Thor and DriveOS will be integrated into the Aurora Driver, an SAE L4 autonomous driving system that Continental plans to mass-manufacture in 2027.
Industry-first partnership to scale driverless trucks
“Developing, industrializing, and manufacturing powerful self-driving hardware at commercial scale requires unique and unparalleled expertise,” said Aruna Anand, president and CEO, Automotive, Continental North America. “Our industry-first collaboration with Aurora and NVIDIA to deliver driverless trucks positions Continental at the forefront of this cutting-edge technology and will drive value to our business.”
Delivering safe, highly performant and reliable driverless trucks
According to the release, Aurora is in the final stages of validating the Aurora Driver for driverless operations on public roads. The Aurora Driver is equipped with a powerful computer and sensors, including lidar, radar, and cameras, enabling it to safely operate at highway speeds. Verifiable AI enables the Aurora Driver to quickly adapt to new operating domains while being validated through Aurora’s Safety Case, an essential tool for regulatory trust and public acceptance. Aurora plans to launch its driverless trucking service in Texas in April 2025.
NVIDIA will power the primary computer of the Aurora Driver with a dual NVIDIA DRIVE Thor SoC configuration that runs DriveOS. DRIVE Thor, built on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, is designed to accelerate inference tasks critical for autonomous vehicles to understand and navigate the world around them. As Continental and Aurora prepare to manufacture self-driving hardware at scale in 2027, production samples of DRIVE Thor are coming in the first half of 2025.
Continental is developing a reliable, serviceable, cost-efficient generation of the Aurora Driver hardware, specifically for high-volume manufacturing, according to the release. The company is also developing a specialized independent secondary system that can take over operation if a failure occurs in the primary Aurora Driver computer. With start of production planned for 2027, Continental will test prototypes of the future hardware kit in the coming months. Continental will then integrate DRIVE Thor with DriveOS into the primary Aurora Driver computer at its manufacturing facilities and ship the full hardware kit to Aurora’s truck OEM partners for integration into customers’ trucks.
“The combination of NVIDIA’s automotive-grade DRIVE Thor platform with Aurora’s advanced self-driving trucking technology and Continental’s manufacturing and integration expertise is set to help drive the future of autonomous trucking, helping make roads safer while driving up operational efficiency,” said Rishi Dhall, vice president of automotive at NVIDIA.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
