Nvidia Accelerates Autonomous Driving Ambitions with Mercedes-Benz Partnership
Nvidia Corp. is making a decisive move into autonomous vehicle development through a strategic partnership with Mercedes-Benz Group AG. At CES 2026, CEO Jensen Huang unveiled Alpamayo—a new suite of open-source AI models designed to power next-generation self-driving systems. The chipmaker's foray challenges Tesla Inc.'s dominance in the sector while leveraging its AI hardware expertise.
"This represents our first full-stack autonomous vehicle solution," Huang declared during his keynote. The collaboration will see Mercedes-Benz become the first automaker to deploy Nvidia's autonomous driving technology, with production vehicles expected by Q1 2027. Huang positioned the MOVE as foundational for what he called "the coming robotics industrial revolution."
The Alpamayo chips promise advanced decision-making capabilities for complex driving scenarios—a critical differentiator as regulatory scrutiny of autonomous systems intensifies globally. While Nvidia's GPUs have primarily fueled AI software breakthroughs like ChatGPT, this partnership signals the company's ambition to dominate the physical infrastructure of automation.