The autonomous- vehicle "revolution has arrived" and the "robotics era is just around the corner," NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said this week.
He sounded a lot like Elon Musk -- a vindication for the Tesla Motors CEO.
In his keynote address at the CES trade show in Las Vegas on Monday night, Huang outlined a number of amazing -- and sometimes hard to understand -- advancements in artificial intelligence. He spent a lot of time talking about self-driving cars and robots -- two killer applications made possible by AI.
Three things are bringing self-driving cars to the masses, the Nvidia chief said: AI models capable of driving the cars, AI training simulations that use real and created scenarios to train the models, and powerful AI computers inside vehicles capable of running the ever-improving driving models. That is the same way Musk has been explaining Tesla's self-driving push for years.
Sometimes, investors discount what Musk says given that he is very optimistic about how fast self-driving car advancements are happening, as he admits. What is more, there has long been a debate over the best way to develop autonomous-driving technology.
Much of the debate has focused on whether Tesla needs to add radars and other sensors to the suite of optical cameras its cars use, as Alphabet's Waymo does. But that discussion misses the point. The far bigger issue is the three AI computing steps that Huang outlined.
While Musk was ahead of the curve, others are following Tesla's and Nvidia's lead. Huang's CES speech helped lift shares of Aurora Innovation, an autonomous-truck technology company, by almost 30% on Tuesday.
Aurora is working with Nvidia and the auto parts supplier Continental to bring updated self-driving semi trucks to roads by 2027. Nvidia brings its AI hardware and software expertise, Aurora has self-driving software, and Continental integrates both into automotive-grade products for truck makers.
"The lustrous sheen of Jensen's crocodile (?) leather attire was only to be outshined by his positive commentary on the autonomous vehicle (AV) market [Monday] and the robotics market broadly," wrote Canaccord analyst George Gianarikas in a Tuesday evening report.
Following the remarks, he raised his target for Aurora's stock price to $10 from $7. Gianarikas rates the stock Buy.
Aurora stock gave back some of Tuesday's big gains early Wednesday. Shares were down almost 10% at $7.56 while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were off about 0.2%.
According to Huang, the "robotics era" is just around the corner, and robotics, including both self-driving cars and humanoid robots, could be the " largest technology industry the world has ever seen."
That view also mirrors Musk's. He often says that creating self-driving cars represents one of the largest increases in value for the auto industry in history, and that Tesla's robot business can be bigger than its electric-vehicle operation.
Being right about all this matters a lot for Tesla investors. Tesla is working on humanoid robots. It's also planning to launch a self-driving robotaxi service in late 2025.
Self-driving cars are the biggest reason Tesla stock has risen about 65% since the company's Oct. 10 robotaxi event, when Musk laid out his vision for a future in which people would no longer have to spend time driving, and fewer cars would, eventually, be on the roads.
