SAN FRANCISCO: Nvidia has released a new open-source software designed to accelerate the development of self-driving vehicles using advanced AI reasoning techniques.
The software, named Alpamayo-R1, is a vision-language-action model that allows autonomous cars to interpret what their sensors see on the road and explain their decisions in natural language.
Named after a challenging Peruvian mountain peak, Alpamayo-R1 enables vehicles to think aloud as they navigate.
For example, if the car detects a bike path, it can indicate that it is adjusting its route accordingly.
This transparency marks a shift from older self-driving software, which offered little insight into why specific driving choices were made, making it harder for engineers to improve safety.
Katie Washabaugh, Nvidia’s product marketing manager for autonomous vehicle simulation, told Reuters that the software is being released openly so developers and researchers can better understand these AI models and help establish industry-wide evaluation standards.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, continues to expand its AI research, providing tools that companies such as Palantir Technologies can integrate into their own projects.
