Baidu and ZF tap Nvidia Drive for self-driving compute tech

Nvidia announced at its CES 2018 keynote that it’s now partnering with two Chinese companies on bringing autonomous driving to roads, including Baidu and automaker ZF. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced that Nvidia’s Drive Xavier autonomous compute platform would be used for Baidu’s Apollo project, which aims to offer an open platform for self-driving cars in partnership with a wide variety of automakers, suppliers and tech companies.

The partnership will give Nvidia key access to supplying the Chinese market with AV tech, letting it build a platform that can truly span the world, and operate in what’s become the most important, largest and fastest-growing auto market in the world.

ZF is a huge, crucial supplier in safety and ADAS tech, too and it’s likely to help Nvidia grow aspects of its business that focus on steps between safety features now, and eventual full self-driving later.

Baidu has a large presence at CES this year, a first for the Chinese internet tech giant. It’s going to be showing off its latest AV prototypes at the show, which will include tech from Nvidia on board.