Audi and NVIDIA work together on AI-powered cars

NVIDIA isn’t just content with making an artificial intelligence platform for cars and waiting for someone to use it. The company has unveiled a partnership with Audi that has the two working on AI-powered cars. You’ll first see the fruits of their labor in an experimental Q7 SUV that has learned to drive itself in three days (it’ll be putting around CES’ Gold Lot), but their plans are much bigger. Ultimately, their goal is to have Audis with Level 4 autonomy (that is, full autonomy outside of extreme situations) on roads by 2020 — that’s only 3 years away, which is fairly aggressive compared to other German automakers.

There’s still a lot we don’t know. What’s the roadmap in between now and then? Which streets, exactly? And will these be cars you can buy, or just test mules? Even if it’s not quite as earth-shattering as NVIDIA makes it out to be, though, it represents a milestone for the company’s ambitions in driverless tech. While Audi is an obvious partner given its history with NVIDIA (the companies have collaborated a few times before), it’s telling that the automaker is willing to stake the future of its autonomous vehicles on NVIDIA’s hardware.

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