Nvidia Unveils Next-Gen AI Chips and Mercedes Self-Driving Partnership

A Silicon Valley Sunrise

At dawn on Nvidia’s Santa Clara campus, CEO Jensen Huang pulled a sleek module the size of a paperback from his trademark leather jacket. "This isn’t just a chip," he told the hushed crowd. "It’s the brain that will let cars dream."

The Blackwell GPU: 30 Billion Transistors, One Purpose

Code-named Blackwell, the new automotive-grade GPU crams 30 billion transistors onto a 5-nanometer die, delivering 4,000 TOPS of AI performance while sipping 40 percent less energy than the previous Orin generation. Huang said the first production run is already earmarked for Mercedes-Benz, whose next S-Class will use two Blackwell units per vehicle for fail-safe redundancy.

We’re not talking about assisted driving anymore. We’re talking about a chauffeur that never blinks. — Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO

A Partnership Forged on the Autobahn

Mercedes board member Markus Schäfer joined Huang on stage to detail a joint program that will begin rolling out in 2025: a Level 4 autonomous fleet in Stuttgart and Silicon Valley. Every vehicle will ship with over-the-air update capability, allowing the same car to improve its driving IQ while parked overnight.

• Blackwell chips validated for automotive temperatures from –40 °C to 105 °C
• Mercedes’ new MBUX Virtual Chauffeur software stack built on Nvidia DriveOS
• Shared data loop: Mercedes fleet feeds real-world scenarios back to Nvidia training farms

Why Investors Buckled Up

Shares of Nvidia jumped 6 % in after-hours trading, pushing the company’s market cap past the $1 trillion mark for the second time this year. Analysts at Morgan Stanley called the Mercedes deal "a flagship win that could replicate across every premium automaker still on the fence about AI."

The Road Ahead

Huang closed the keynote with a glimpse of future iterations: a 2026 platform integrating a lidar-on-chip subsystem and secure blockchain logging for ride-hailing fleets. "Today we showed you a chip," he said, stepping into a silver EQS prototype that quietly drove itself offstage. "Tomorrow we ship imagination."