Autonomous trucking company Gatik says its plans to automate the middle-mile trucking segment are being accelerated thanks to a partnership with Nvidia which will see it deploy its Drive AGX in-vehicle compute architecture across Classes 6 and 7 driverless vehicles.

The Nvidia deal will allow it to scale up Level 4 autonomous trucks for customers such as Walmart, Kroger and Tyson Foods, the company announced.

“We are excited to collaborate with Nvidia and integrate their world-class expertise and groundbreaking technology into Isuzu’s production-ready vehicle platform, as we enter our next phase of commercial growth,” said Gautam Narang, CEO of Gatik.

“Nvidia’s next-generation computing architecture will provide critical support to the onboard AI-processing necessary for deploying Gatik’s freight-only operations safely, and at scale. This partnership builds on our existing collaboration with Isuzu North America Corporation, and marks a significant step forward in our mission to commercialize a safe, scalable, and efficient autonomous transportation service across the middle-mile.”

Nvidia’s Drive AGX and the Drive Thor system-on-a-chip (SoC) will serve as the AI brain for the next-generation self-driving trucks, Gatik announced. The chips are capable of packing up to 1,000 trillion operations per second of computing power.

“The combination of our AI-driven solutions and Gatik’s autonomous technology that’s purpose built for the middle mile will help tackle the trucking industry’s challenges such as rising e-commerce demand, driver shortages, and operational costs – while enabling a smarter, more sustainable transportation ecosystem,” said Rishi Dhall, vice-president of automotive at Nvidia. “Our automotive-grade Drive AGX platform built on the Drive Thor SoC delivers the massive compute power essential for secure and reliable autonomous operations, making roads safer and logistics more efficient, at scale.”