Bot Auto taps Lenovo, Nvidia, pegs autonomy hardware at $50,000

Bot Auto has announced a partnership with Lenovo and Nvidia to supply the autonomy hardware for its Class 8 driverless trucks. The company expects the full hardware bill of materials for its autonomy system, compute, and sensors to cost $50,000 per truck, which is significantly less than other systems in the market. The AD1 autonomous-driving domain controller, built on Nvidia Hyperion, will be the production computer for Bot Auto's trucks starting in the first quarter of 2027.

Xiaodi Hou, founder and CEO of Bot Auto, believes that standard servers are not the ideal architecture for commercial trucks and that the AD1 will provide better unit economics per truck. The AD1 is rated for continuous operation in extreme temperatures and shock and vibration, and it delivers up to 2,000 FP4 teraflops of AI compute.

Lenovo designed the AD1 to support ISO 26262 functional-safety standard up to ASIL D and ISO 21434 automotive cybersecurity standard. Other driverless truck developers are also using the same Nvidia hardware, including Aurora and Einride. Bot Auto plans to expand the AD1 rollout as it adds autonomous capacity across Texas and the Southwest, with a goal of 1 billion autonomous miles by 2031.