Aurora Innovation (AUR+38.54%) stock was booming early Tuesday after the company’s latest partnership was revealed during Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keynote on Monday.
Aurora stock climbed as high as 44% in pre-market trading before paring back its gains to a 40% jump. The self-driving technology firm’s stock grew by about 70% in 2024.
The companies said Monday that they would work with German automotive parts manufacturing company Continental to deploy driverless trucks powered by Nvidia’s (NVDA-0.17%) DRIVE Thor chips in the coming years. The Aurora Driver, which the company says will use a SAE level four system, will be mass-produced by Continental in 2027. Production samples are scheduled to arrive in the first half of 2025.
Last January, Aurora told Quartz that it had more than two dozen trucks making autonomous deliveries — albeit with a driver ready to take over — in Texas through partnerships with Uber (UBER+2.27%) and FedEx (FDX+1.05%).
Aurora had initially planned a commercial launch by the end of 2024 but pushed back that debut to improve its software. On Monday, the company confirmed it is targeting an April launch, beginning with a single truck monitored remotely on a route from Dallas to Houston.
“Delivering one driverless truck will be monumental. Deploying thousands will change the way we live,” Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson said in a statement. He added that Nvidia’s chips will boost Aurora’s ability to deliver “safe and reliable” trucks at scale.
As for Nvidia, the chipmaker has its hands in more than a few self-driving pies. The company said Monday that Toyota (TM+2.15%) will use its DRIVE AGX Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC) technology for its next-generation vehicles for driving assistance.
“We’re working with just about every major car company around the world. Waymo (GOOGL+1.29%), and Zoox (AMZN-0.67%), and Tesla (TSLA-0.26%), of course, in their data center, and BYD (BYDDY+1.36%), the largest EV company in the world; JLR’s got a really cool car coming. Mercedes has a fleet of cars coming with Nvidia starting this year going to production,” Huang said at his keynote.
He also highlighted Volvo, self-driving truck startup Waabi, electric truck maker Rivian (RIVN+3.02%), luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid (LCID+7.66%), and China’s Xiaomi.
“I predict that this will likely be the first multi-trillion dollar robotics industry,” Huang added. “Our business if already $4 billion and, this year, probably on the runway to about $5 billion.
Nvidia stock rose almost 3% in pre-market trading. The stock saw explosive growth last year as the artificial intelligence boom went into high-gear.
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