Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote at the GTC 2025 conference highlighted the company’s continued commitment to autonomous vehicles. While discussing computer vision, Huang referenced AlexNet, a neural network architecture that achieved 84.7% accuracy in an academic image-recognition contest in 2012.
This breakthrough led to a resurgence of interest in deep learning and spurred Nvidia to invest heavily in self-driving cars. “The moment I saw AlexNet was such an inspiring moment,” Huang said. “It caused us to decide to go all in on building self-driving cars.”
Nvidia has since partnered with numerous automakers, suppliers, and tech companies, including GM, Tesla, Wayve, and Volvo. The company’s technology is used by these companies for data centers, digital twins of factories, and safety-focused operating systems.
The result is that Nvidia DNA is embedded in the autonomous vehicle industry, with its products being employed across various companies, from Mercedes to Toyota and Zoox. This underscores Nvidia’s position as a leader in the development of self-driving technology.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/18/an-ai-model-from-over-a-decade-ago-sparked-nvidias-investment-in-autonomous-vehicles