Insider Brief
- Pony.ai introduced a new autonomous driving domain controller built with NVIDIA to support its Level 4 robotaxi platform and broader autonomous mobility applications, including logistics, delivery and industrial robotics.
- The system is built on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion and powered by DRIVE AGX Thor with NVLink, enabling up to 4,000 FP4 TFLOPS of computing performance while supporting multi-sensor fusion, full-scenario perception and higher safety redundancy for fully driverless operations.
- Pony.ai said shipments of its Fangzai domain controller rose more than 500% year over year in 2025, and the company plans to expand its robotaxi fleet to more than 3,000 vehicles across more than 20 cities globally by the end of 2026.
PRESS RELEASE — Pony AI Inc. (“Pony.ai”) (NASDAQ: PONY; HKEX: 2026) announced its new generation autonomous driving domain controller, a high-performance compute system designed for both Pony.ai’s L4 autonomous driving platform and a broader set of customer applications across autonomous mobility. Developed in collaboration with NVIDIA, the new controller is built on the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform and powered by NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor with NVIDIA NVLink, supporting Pony.ai’s next phase of commercialization in robotaxis and its growing domain controller business.
The new system is designed to deliver significant gains in AI computing performance, energy efficiency and support for the latest AI models, while meeting core L4 requirements such as multi-sensor fusion, full-scenario perception and high-complexity scenario understanding. It is also engineered to further enhance safety redundancy, system robustness and deployment flexibility.
Pony.ai expects the new platform to support a portfolio spanning multiple compute tiers and cooling solutions, enabling deployment across a wide range of autonomous applications. With flexible single-chip and multi-chip configurations, the platform is expected to incorporate NVIDIA NVLink to enable high-speed, low-latency communication between the two DRIVE Thor system-on-a-chips (SoCs), achieving a combined maximum computing performance of 4000 FP4 TFLOPS.
“Our collaboration with NVIDIA has supported several critical milestones in Pony.ai’s autonomous driving journey,” said Dr. James Peng, Founder and CEO of Pony.ai. “The next-generation domain controller built on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion will be a key enabler for the continued evolution of our L4 autonomous driving products and help accelerate large-scale commercialization.”
“Autonomous driving systems are rapidly increasing in complexity, driving the need for scalable, high-performance compute platforms,” said Rishi Dhall, Vice President of Automotive at NVIDIA. “Pony.ai has been a long-standing NVIDIA DRIVE customer and ecosystem partner, and we’re pleased to see them build their next-generation domain controller on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion with DRIVE Thor accelerated compute to support advanced L4 autonomous driving applications.”
The new platform builds on a long-standing collaboration between Pony.ai and NVIDIA that began in 2017. In 2022, Pony.ai launched its in-house developed automotive-grade computing unit powered by single or multiple NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin SoC, which was deployed in its sixth-generation Robotaxis. In 2025, the company began mass production of the world’s first L4 Robotaxi domain controller equipped with four NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin SoCs. That controller now powers Pony.ai’s seventh-generation (Gen-7) Robotaxis and provides a strong foundation for scalable, fully driverless operations.
As one of the few L4 autonomous driving companies globally with full-stack, in-house capabilities across both software and hardware, Pony.ai brings deep expertise in domain controller design. Its software-hardware co-design approach enables system-level optimization across performance, safety and cost.
Over the past year, Pony.ai has seen growing demand for its automotive-grade domain controllers across low-speed delivery, robosweeping, logistics, mining, autonomous shuttles and other robotics and intelligent mobility applications. Shipments of its “Fangzai” domain controller in 2025 surged by more than 500% year over year. Customers are spread across dozens of countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, and Switzerland.
Building on Gen-7’s gains in cost efficiency, safety and reliability, Pony.ai has also achieved significant milestones in robotaxi commercialization, including unit-economics breakeven in two of China’s major metropolitan markets. The company aims to expand its robotaxi fleet to more than 3,000 vehicles and its geographic footprint to more than 20 cities globally by the end of 2026.
Image credit: Pony AI
