Volvo Cars and Autoliv team up with NVIDIA to develop advanced systems for self-driving cars
Volvo Cars and Autoliv team up with NVIDIA to develop advanced systems for self-driving cars
Volvo Cars, the premium car maker, Autoliv, the world leading automotive safety company, and NVIDIA, the AI and visual computing company, are teaming up to develop advanced systems and software for self-driving cars.
The three companies will work together with Zenuity, a newly-formed automotive software development joint venture equally owned by Volvo Cars and Autoliv, to develop next generation self-driving car technologies. Volvo Cars is committed to having Level 4 autonomous cars for sale by 2021.
As part of the collaboration Volvo Cars, Autoliv and Zenuity will use NVIDIA’s AI car computing platform as the foundation for their own advanced software development, bringing together two of the most respected companies in automotive safety with one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies.
“This cooperation with NVIDIA places Volvo Cars, Autoliv and Zenuity at the forefront of the fast moving market to develop next generation autonomous driving capabilities and will speed up the development of Volvo’s own commercially available autonomous drive cars,” said Hakan Samuelsson, president and chief executive of Volvo Cars.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of NVIDIA, said: “Artificial intelligence is the essential tool for solving the incredibly demanding challenge of autonomous driving. We are building on our earlier collaboration with Volvo Cars to create production ready vehicles that will make driving safer, lead to greener cities and reduce congestion on our roads.”
Jan Carlson, chief executive of Autoliv, said: “With NVIDIA, we now have full access to the leading AI computing platform for autonomous driving. Autoliv, Volvo Cars and NVIDIA share the same vision for safe, autonomous driving. This cooperation will further advance our leading ADAS and autonomous driving offerings to the market.”
Volvo Cars, Autoliv, Zenuity and NVIDIA will work together to develop systems that can utilize deep learning -- a form of artificial intelligence -- to recognize objects in their environment, anticipate potential threats and navigate safely.
These systems can compare real-time situational awareness with a known high-definition map, enabling them to plan a safe route and drive precisely along it, adjusting to ever-changing circumstances. They also perform other critical functions such as stitching camera inputs to create a complete surround-view of the car.
Zenuity will provide Volvo Cars with self-driving software. At the same time, Autoliv will also sell this software to third party OEMs using Autoliv’s established and broad sales, marketing and distribution network.
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Volvo Car Group in 2016
For the 2016 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 11,014 MSEK (6,620 MSEK in 2015). Revenue over the period amounted to 180,672 MSEK (164,043 MSEK). For the full year 2016, global sales reached a record 534,332 cars, an increase of 6.2 per cent versus 2015. The record sales and operating profit cleared the way for Volvo Car Group to continue investing in its global transformation plan.
About Volvo Car Group
Volvo has been in operation since 1927. Today, Volvo Cars is one of the most well-known and respected car brands in the world with sales of 534,332 cars in 2016 in about 100 countries. Volvo Cars has been under the ownership of the Zhejiang Geely Holding (Geely Holding) of China since 2010. It formed part of the Swedish Volvo Group until 1999, when the company was bought by Ford Motor Company of the US. In 2010, Volvo Cars was acquired by Geely Holding.
As of December 2016, Volvo Cars had over 31,000 employees worldwide. Volvo Cars head office, product development, marketing and administration functions are mainly located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Volvo Cars head office for China is located in Shanghai. The company’s main car production plants are located in Gothenburg (Sweden), Ghent (Belgium), Chengdu and Daqing (China), while engines are manufactured in Skövde (Sweden) and Zhangjiakou (China) and body components in Olofström (Sweden).
About Zenuity
Zenuity was established April 18, 2017, and is a new ADAS and AD software company. Zenuity is a joint venture equally owned by Autoliv and Volvo Car Group. Headquarter is in Gothenburg, Sweden, but are also based in Detroit, US, and Munich, Germany. Zenuity has today 350 employees in total. More information at www.zenuity.com
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA's (NASDAQ: NVDA) invention of the GPU in 1999 sparked the growth of the PC gaming market, redefined modern computer graphics and revolutionized parallel computing. More recently, GPU deep learning ignited modern AI -- the next era of computing -- with the GPU acting as the brain of computers, robots and self-driving cars that can perceive and understand the world. More information at http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/.
About Autoliv
Autoliv, Inc. is the worldwide leader in automotive safety systems, and through its subsidiaries develops and manufactures automotive safety systems for all major automotive manufacturers in the world. Together with its joint ventures, Autoliv has more than 80 facilities with 70,000 employees in 27 countries. In addition, the Company has 22 technical centers in ten countries around the world, with 19 test tracks, more than any other automotive safety supplier. Sales in 2016 amounted to about US $10.1 billion. The Company's shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: ALV) and its Swedish Depository Receipts on Nasdaq Stockholm (ALIV sdb). For more information about Autoliv, please visit www.autoliv.com.