Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz reveal AI driverless car with advanced reasoning abilities

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Nvidia recently introduced a new platform for self-driving cars, powered by sophisticated AI. They’re working with Mercedes-Benz to release a driverless vehicle in the US in the near future.

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, unveiled their latest self-driving car system, called Alpamayo, during a presentation at CES in Las Vegas.

Nvidia explains that this technology aims to help vehicles think through difficult and unusual situations, instead of just responding based on what they’ve already learned.

Huang says the Alpamayo platform will help self-driving cars handle unusual situations, navigate tricky roads safely, and clearly explain why they make certain driving choices. Nvidia is partnering with Mercedes-Benz to create a completely driverless car using this technology, initially launching in the US, with plans to expand to Europe and Asia later on.

At the presentation, Nvidia demonstrated an AI-driven Mercedes-Benz navigating the streets of San Francisco. The driver was seated and had their hands off the wheel, showing the car’s self-driving capability.

According to Huang, the system learns by observing how people drive, but it also explains its decisions as they happen. He explained that in any situation, the system will clearly state its intended action and the reasoning behind it.

Alpamayo, a new AI model, is now available for free as open-source software on Hugging Face. Nvidia hopes this will help researchers and developers quickly improve technology for self-driving vehicles by allowing them to freely access and customize the model.

Huang explained that this project marks a major step forward for robots and other physical AI, predicting that a breakthrough moment – similar to the impact ChatGPT had on chatbots – is coming soon.

Following the announcement, Elon Musk – whose company Tesla also has a driver assistance system called Autopilot – responded with a post on social media. He predicted that while achieving 99% driving accuracy will be straightforward, perfecting the remaining, more difficult scenarios will be a major challenge.

Tesla is tackling a common challenge – it’s relatively easy to achieve high levels of success, but incredibly difficult to address the remaining, less common issues. They’ll find it’s simple to reach 99% completion, but the final 1% is where things get really tough.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 6, 2026

I was so excited to hear Nvidia is planning to launch a robotaxi service next year! They’re teaming up with a partner, but they haven’t said who it is or where they’ll be rolling it out just yet. I’m really curious to see where this goes!

The company continues to be the most valuable publicly traded company globally and announced that its new Rubin AI chips are now being made and will be available later this year.

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2026-01-06 15:49