Nvidia’s AI processor business in China has been all but shuttered by the US Commerce Department, but its DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC) for electric autonomous vehicles is still going strong.
More than a dozen corporate customers in China contribute to Nvidia’s automotive revenues, which are now running at a rate of over US$1 billion per year.
Several of Nvidia’s Chinese customers showcased their new electric vehicles (EVs) at the 21st Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition held from November 17-26, including Denza, Human Horizons, Ji Yue, NIO, XPeng, Zeekr and BYD.
The Nvidia DRIVE Orin SoC is a central computer for intelligent vehicles that is capable of 254 trillion operations per second. Scalable from Level 2 advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) to Level 5 fully autonomous vehicles, DRIVE Orin enables instantaneous and redundant processing of data from exterior and interior cameras, radar, lidar and ultrasonic sensors.

Nvidia’s automotive chip sales still riding high in China
US tech company’s DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip is not yet sanctioned and featured in many of China’s cutting-edge electric vehicle models