Operational Presence
Designs the NVIDIA DRIVE platform — the dominant high-performance compute system for autonomous vehicles. Its Orin and next-gen Thor chips power the autonomous driving stacks of Mercedes, JLR, BYD, Hyundai, and dozens of AV startups. Also provides simulation (DRIVE Sim / Omniverse) and mapping infrastructure used by the industry at large.
Value Chain Position
Chip DesignSensorsSoftware / AIVehicle IntegrationFleet OperationsRide-hail / Logistics
Chip Design
- •DRIVE Orin: Current-gen automotive SoC delivering 254 TOPS of AI compute. Powers autonomous driving systems for Mercedes, JLR, BYD, Hyundai, and dozens of AV startups.
- •DRIVE Thor: Next-gen centralized car computer with 2,000 TOPS. Consolidates autonomous driving, parking, driver monitoring, and infotainment into a single chip.
Software / AI
- •DRIVE OS & DriveWorks: Safety-certified operating system and middleware for building autonomous driving pipelines on NVIDIA hardware.
- •Omniverse / DRIVE Sim: Physics-based simulation platform used to train and validate AV systems in virtual environments before real-world deployment.
Technology Milestones
Key Milestones
Jan 2018
Launch
DRIVE Xavier SoC launched — first autonomous driving chip with 30 TOPS
Mar 2020
Milestone
DRIVE Orin announced with 254 TOPS — adopted by Mercedes, JLR, BYD, and Hyundai
Sep 2022
Milestone
DRIVE Thor announced with 2,000 TOPS — next-gen centralized car computer