Nvidia on Monday unveiled a plan to launch robotaxi trials with partners as early as 2027, marking an important step for the chipmaker on its path to becoming a key player in the self-driving car market.

The planned service will use vehicles equipped with Level 4 autonomous-driving capability, allowing them to operate without human intervention within predefined geographic areas. Nvidia has yet to reveal where the service will be launched or which partners will be involved in the project.

CEO Jensen Huang has previously said that robotics – including self-driving cars – is the company’s second most important growth engine after artificial intelligence.

Speaking at the CES conference in Las Vegas on Monday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shared his vision for autonomous vehicles, imagining a future where one billion cars on the road are self-driving. People will be able to choose between using robotaxis arranged and operated by others, or owning their own autonomous vehicles.

In addition, to broaden the scope of its technology applications, Nvidia announced a suite of AI models and tools designed to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles and power a new generation of robots.

The company also introduced a new automotive platform called “Alpamayo.” This platform enables vehicles to perform real-world reasoning. Potential users can adopt the Alpamayo model and retrain it themselves. The free offering is designed to build vehicles that can independently handle unexpected situations, such as malfunctioning traffic lights. The onboard computer analyses input from cameras and other sensors, breaks it down into a series of steps, and then arrives at a solution.

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Nvidia also announced that its highly anticipated new “Rubin” data-centre product will come to market later this year, allowing customers to begin trialling the technology and further accelerating AI development. The latest Rubin accelerator delivers 3.5 times the training performance of its Blackwell predecessor and runs AI software five times faster.