March 16 (Reuters) - Uber Technologies and Nvidia said on Monday they will deploy a fleet of robotaxis powered by Nvidia's autonomous driving software on the ride-hailing network, starting in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2027 and expanding to 28 cities globally by 2028.
Robotaxis are rapidly expanding into more cities as companies race to commercialize autonomous ride-hailing, but Alphabet's Waymo remains the early leader while Tesla's vast manufacturing scale and financial resources could reshape the competitive landscape.
Competition in the sector has intensified as companies scale driverless fleets. Alphabet's Waymo currently operates the most advanced commercial robotaxi service, running fully driverless rides in cities including Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and steadily expanding its fleet.
Tesla, meanwhile, is betting on a camera-based approach to autonomy and has said it plans to launch its own robotaxi service while leveraging its large vehicle manufacturing capacity.
Uber and Nvidia said the vehicles will run on the DRIVE Hyperion autonomous vehicle platform along with Alpamayo, a reasoning-based AI model designed to handle complex road scenarios.
The rollout will begin with data-collection vehicles to train the system on city-specific driving conditions before moving to operator-supervised launches and eventually fully driverless Level 4 operations.
The companies plan to expand the service across North America, Europe, Australia and Asia as part of a broader push to bring autonomous ride-hailing to the market.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the partnership is intended to support a "multi-player" autonomous vehicle ecosystem on the company's platform as more developers and automakers bring robotaxi services to market.
The Nvidia collaboration adds to Uber's strategy of assembling partnerships across the autonomous vehicle industry rather than building its own technology.
The ride-hailing company previously struck a deal with electric vehicle maker Lucid Group and autonomous driving startup Nuro to deploy robotaxis built on Lucid vehicles and powered by Nuro's self-driving software on the Uber network.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
