Decade-Old AI Model Fuels Nvidia’s Leap into Autonomous Vehicles
Nvidia’s “Deep‑Learning Harkening: A Back‑to‑School Moment
Picture this: Cheery Jensen Huang takes the stage at GTC 2025, dropping a payload of new tech hand slaps and dazzling data, but he flashes back—like a nostalgic student—to the 2012 era when AlexNet rewrote machine‑learning history.
Remember AlexNet?
- Who invented it: Alex Krizhevsky teamed up with a future OpenAI co‑founder, Ilya Sutskever, and the late‑great Geoffrey Hinton.
- Achievement: It nailed an 84.7% hit rate on ImageNet, throwing the deep‑learning world into a fever.
- Why it mattered: Suddenly, researchers were obsessing over neural networks, and Nvidia? Spoiler: they were ready to jump on the bandwagon.
Huang’s “Eureka!” Moment
“The moment I saw AlexNet, I was like, ‘Whoa, this is the future’,” he said, eyes wide. “It was an epic doping moment—literally, it made us go all‑in on autonomous cars.”
If you’ve ever imagined a car that can navigate itself, you’ll see how this led Nvidia to drop the mic on automotive tech for the last decade and hold the run‑way for nearly every driverless company out there.
The Modern‑Day Musk‑Style Wreck‑less Cars
- Tesla, Wayve, Waymo —they all lean on Nvidia GPUs for their data‑heavy operations.
- Omniverse — a virtual twin platform that lets factories do a crystal‑clear drama rehearsal before the actual car rolls off the line.
- Drive Orin — powered by Nvidia’s Ampere chip that basically boots up a miniature supercomputer inside each vehicle.
- DriveOS — a safety‑centric OS that puts brakes in acting as the guardian of every corner turned.
And the newest craze? A deep‑enough partnership with GM that’s already roaring. Every partnership apparently says NVIDIA has engineering for the future, because technology is the new road‑map. Now’s the time to buckle up—literally—to an era where the car’s brain is smarter than most of us have a chance of looking into.
Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda
Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They’re here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $600+ before prices rise.
Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda
Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They’re here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise.
San Francisco
October 27–29, 2025
Register Now
- Dive into the future of automotive tech
- Get up close with Nvidia’s cutting‑edge AI for autopilot
- Unlimited coffee—because good ideas need caffeine!
- Fun networking, quirky snacks, and maybe a robotics demo or two
The upshot? Nvidia’s DNA is already sprinting through the lanes of the automotive world, especially the automated driving sector. Think of it as the secret sauce powering today’s driverless dreams. Join us and be part of the road to tomorrow!
