Mountain View, CA-based autonomous technology startup Nuro today announced the expansion of its business model to include licensing its AI-driven autonomy platform to automotive OEMs and mobility providers. The Nuro Driver will enable up to Level 4 passenger vehicles and mobility platforms, adding to its goods delivery capabilities.

The strategic move leverages the company’s years of successful delivery deployments to accelerate the adoption of autonomous technology across the transportation industry. With more than one million autonomous miles completed across its fleet of R&D vehicles and zero autonomous at-fault incidents, the company says that its technology has demonstrated reliability and commitment to safety in real-world conditions.

“It’s not a question of if, but when L4 autonomy will become widespread,” said Jiajun Zhu, Co-founder and CEO at Nuro. “We believe Nuro is positioned to be a major contributor to this autonomous future where people and goods mobility are free-flowing, representing a significant increase in the quality of life for everyone.”

The Nuro Driver combines automotive-grade hardware with AI-powered self-driving software using Nvidia Drive Thor and Arm Neoverse technologies.

“Advancements in AI throughout the vehicle mean OEMs need an entirely new level of safety-enabled compute performance to deliver the benefits of autonomous technology to drivers,” said Dipti Vachani, SVP and GM, Automotive Line of Business at Arm. “Nuro has already made tremendous advancements in autonomous driving leveraging the performance-efficiency and functional safety leadership of Arm technology, and we’re proud to continue this partnership by powering the Nuro Driver platform with the server-class performance and safety capabilities of Arm Neoverse V3AE technology.”

As part of the new licensing model, Nuro is also announcing the Nuro AI Platform, consisting of scalable and performant developer tools to support AI development and validation.

“Built with Nvidia’s end-to-end safety AV architecture, the Nuro Driver can integrate sensor processing and other safety-critical capabilities, along with AI-driven autonomy, into a single, centralized computing system,” said Rishi Dhall, Vice President of automotive at Nvidia. “This enables the reliability and performance needed for safe deployment of autonomous vehicles at scale.”

Nuro’s AI-first approach to autonomy allows for rapid scaling and safe operation on public roads. The Nuro Driver leverages advanced AI across its autonomy stack, allowing it to confidently navigate urban and highway environments. Safety remains paramount, with redundant systems and a parallel autonomy stack helping to ensure reliable performance.

“Nuro will commercialize our technology through two verticals: mobility service platforms and personally-owned vehicles,” elaborated Andrew Chapin, COO of Nuro, exclusively to Futurride. “We believe both of these opportunities are extremely compelling. As our technology has become more AI-driven, the scope of its potential applications has increased.  We’re one of the few companies in the world with proven L4 expertise—the highest practical level of autonomy—that is in a strong position to help both automotive OEMs and mobility companies commercialize autonomous technology. Nuro’s platform has been road-tested over a million miles with zero accidents.”

Every automotive OEM and mobility service provider is interested in self-driving vehicles, but not every company has the technology or resources to build them on their own, he added. OEMs and service providers can now leverage Nuro’s technology and expertise to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles and the adoption of autonomous technology across the transportation industry.

“By partnering with industry leaders in vehicle manufacturing and mobility services, we’re creating a more efficient ecosystem where each player leverages their unique strengths,” Chapin told Futurride. “This evolution will allow us to bring autonomous technology to a broader range of vehicles and services, accelerating industry-wide adoption. Nuro will focus on what it does best—developing groundbreaking AV tech—and be a critical part of the ecosystem necessary to scale autonomous vehicles.

Last week Nuro revealed a few details on its latest fourth-generation Driver hardware for multiple vehicle types. Key highlights are longer detection range to enable safe highway driving; “massively reduced” cost, unlocking new potential applications; and much improved power and thermal efficiency. The simpler architecture has fewer modules that are more easily adaptable to different vehicle types.

Enabling these advances are automotive-grade components that are going on mass production OEM vehicles including solid-state lidar and the Nvidia Drive Thor. Safety features based on eight years of Nuro Level 4 experience are microphones for siren detection, clearing systems for inclement weather, cleaning systems for removing dirt from sensors, and redundancy in key safety-critical systems.