Nvidia Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) announced that it would be halting its self-driving car tests for a moment in order to ensure the safety of people on the road.
The decision comes following the fatal Uber crash in Arizona, which may not have been caused by the self-driving technology, but still yielded some pause from other self-driving car makers. Nvidia will suspend its autonomous vehicle testing in public roads for a limited time.
The company has Uber as a customer as the ride hailing service uses the chipmaker’s computing platform in its fleet of self-driving vehicles. Nvidia had been testing its autonomous driving technology in New Jersey, California, Japan and Germany.
The chipmaker will be hosting its annual GPU Technology Conference in San Jose this week, and many expect the company to discuss several announcements regarding its automotive technology and products.
“The accident was tragic. It’s a reminder of how difficult SDC technology is and that it needs to be approached with extreme caution and the best safety technologies,” a Nvidia spokesperson said in an email.
“This tragedy is exactly why we’ve committed ourselves to perfecting this life-saving technology. Ultimately AVs will be far safer than human drivers, so this important work needs to continue. We are temporarily suspending the testing of our self-driving cars on public roads to learn from the Uber incident. Our global fleet of manually driven data collection vehicles continue to operate.”
NVDA stock fell 4.8% on Tuesday.
