Uber Partners with Nvidia to Deploy 100,000 Autonomous Vehicles by 2027: Revolutionizing the Ride-Hailing Industry

Uber Technologies Inc. has established a strategic target to develop a fleet of 100,000 autonomous vehicles equipped with Nvidia Corp. technology, a significant initiative aimed at reducing the operational costs of robotaxi services for consumers.

According to Nvidia's Tuesday statement, this expansion is expected to commence in 2027. The announcement enhances the partnership formed between the companies in January, when Uber agreed to share driving data to enhance Nvidia's artificial intelligence models and chip technology for autonomous vehicle development.

During its GTC conference in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Nvidia introduced the Drive AGX Hyperion 10 platform, enabling automobile manufacturers to integrate hardware and sensors compatible with autonomous-driving software systems.

As part of this collaboration, Stellantis NV will be among the initial automakers to supply at least 5,000 Nvidia-powered robotaxis for Uber's services both domestically and internationally. Uber will manage comprehensive fleet operations, including remote assistance, charging, maintenance, cleaning, and customer support services.

Stellantis has announced plans to collaborate with Foxconn for hardware and systems integration, with production targeted for 2028 and initial U.S. operations with Uber beginning thereafter. Testing and pilot programs are expected to increase in frequency over the coming years.

These commitments enable Uber to gradually expand robotaxi availability on its platform, potentially reducing operational costs for this otherwise expensive technology.

Uber has established partnerships with more than a dozen autonomous technology developers and invested in several, based on its vision of a future where robotaxis and human drivers operate complementarily.

Following the announcement, Uber shares initially increased by up to 1.4% before returning to previous levels.

Currently, Uber offers autonomous rides in Austin and Atlanta through Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo, and in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia with China's WeRide Inc. However, fleet size remains limited, with Uber expecting to grow its Waymo fleet in Austin and Atlanta to "hundreds" of vehicles - still minimal compared to Uber's human workforce of millions of drivers and couriers.

This limited scale makes it challenging for Uber to generate profitable margins from robotaxi operations, which currently require outsourced fleet management for daily maintenance, charging, and cleaning.

The Nvidia partnership aims to increase vehicle availability and gradually reduce costs. Uber's current and future robotaxi partners, including Avride, May Mobility Inc., Momenta, Nuro Inc., Pony.ai, Wayve Technologies Ltd., and WeRide, will have access to Nvidia's technology to contribute toward the 100,000-vehicle fleet goal on Uber's platform.

This target incorporates the previously announced commitment from July to purchase and operate 20,000 Lucid Gravity and Nuro vehicles with partners over a six-year period.

Uber is also collaborating with Nvidia to develop a "robotaxi data factory" for autonomous vehicle advancement. Uber will gather over three million hours of robotaxi-specific driving data to enhance driverless model training and validation. Nvidia will supply the processors, AI models, and tools for data curation, search, and simulation.

"Together, these capabilities form a powerful data engine - spanning ingestion, labeling, scenario mining, synthetic data generation and large-scale training - that aims to shorten the path from pilot to profitable autonomy deployment," stated Uber.