Nvidia is in talks to invest $500 million in the London-based self-driving car startup Wayve Technologies.
Nvidia’s interest comes as the sci-fi dream of driverless cars inches closer to reality. Alphabet’s Waymo robotaxis already roam several U.S. cities, Tesla is testing its own service in Austin, and Amazon’s Zoox taxis—which have no steering wheels or pedals—just started offering rides in Las Vegas this month.
The tech for driverless cars is accelerating so quickly that Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi warned at the All-In Summit this month that driverless taxis could outnumber human-driven ones within 10 to 15 years.
Now, Nvidia is gearing up to take a bigger stake in the self-driving car race.
The news of the talks also comes just days after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, along with other major tech executives, joined President Donald Trump on his visit to the U.K. and pledged to invest over $2 billion in the nation’s AI startup scene.
Huang said in a statement that the U.K. is experiencing a “Goldilocks moment.”
“There has never been a better time to invest in the U.K. — AI is unlocking new science and sparking entirely new industries,” Huang said. “With new capital and advanced infrastructure, we are doubling down to empower the U.K. to lead the next wave of AI innovation.”
Who is Wayve?
So why is Nvidia betting on Wayve?
Founded in 2017, the London startup makes autonomous-driving software called “Embodied AI,” which learns from real-world traffic using cameras and machine learning. This theoretically gets rid of the need for detailed maps that its competitors rely on.
Instead of building its own driverless cars, Wayve is focused on the software, which it says is vehicle agnostic—meaning it can be adapted to work on everything from passenger cars to delivery vans.
The company has already landed big partners. In April, Nissan announced plans to incorporate Wayve’s tech into its driver-assistance system starting in 2027. And in June, Uber said it would begin public-road trials of fully driverless cars in London using Wayve software.
Wayve raised over $1 billion last year in a funding round led by SoftBank, with Nvidia and Uber among the investors.
On Thursday, Wayve announced that Nvidia had signed a letter of intent to explore its latest investment in the startup. Wayve and Nvidia have worked together since 2018, and the startup’s upcoming Gen-3 platform is set to run on Nvidia’s DRIVE AGX Thor hardware.
Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall said in a statement that Nvidia’s support underscores its “potential to transform the future of mobility.”