Aurora Shares Jump 44% After Collaboration with NVIDIA on Driverless Trucks
Aurora Innovation's shares surged over 44% in premarket trading on Tuesday following the announcement of a strategic partnership with NVIDIA and Continental to deploy driverless trucks at scale.
The collaboration will integrate NVIDIA's next-generation DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC) and DriveOS into the Aurora Driver, an SAE Level 4 autonomous driving system. Continental plans to mass-manufacture the system in 2027.
"Delivering one driverless truck will be monumental. Deploying thousands will change the way we live," said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder at Aurora. "NVIDIA is the market leader in accelerated computing, and they'll strengthen our ecosystem of partners and our ability to deliver safe and reliable driverless trucks to our customers at scale."
"The combination of NVIDIA's automotive-grade DRIVE Thor platform with Aurora's advanced self-driving trucking technology and Continental's manufacturing and integration expertise is set to help drive the future of autonomous trucking, helping make roads safer while driving up operational efficiency," said Rishi Dhall, vice president of automotive at NVIDIA.
Aurora aims to revolutionize transportation by making it safer, more accessible, and efficient through its self-driving technology. The Aurora Driver is designed to operate various vehicle types, including freight-hauling trucks and ride-hailing passenger vehicles. The company is in the final stages of validating the Aurora Driver for public road operations and plans to launch its driverless trucking service in Texas in April.
NVIDIA's DRIVE Thor, built on the NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, will power the primary computer of the Aurora Driver with a dual SoC configuration, enhancing the system's ability to navigate autonomously. Production samples of DRIVE Thor are expected in the first half of 2025.