Uber and NVIDIA target robotaxi operations in 28 cities by 2028
Key Facts
Uber and NVIDIA announced an expansion of their autonomous vehicle partnership on March 16, 2026, targeting robotaxi operations in 28 cities worldwide by 2028. The companies said the service would begin in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of 2027, before expanding to markets across four continents. The timetable calls for driverless operations in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The announcement sets a specific timeline and geographic scale for Uber’s ambition to bring autonomous vehicles onto its network. The announcement circulating on November 2 republishes the plan announced in March.
The service will not move directly to fully driverless operations; the plan begins with a fleet of vehicles collecting driving data in the target cities. According to an Uber statement, the data will be used to train the Alpamayo system on the differences and conditions specific to driving in each city. The data-collection phase will be followed by launches supervised by an operator, then a transition to fully autonomous Level 4 operations. This sequence ties expansion to local training and successive operational phases before reaching the final goal. NVIDIA describes the plan as covering 28 cities and four continents by 2028, with launches in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area beginning in the first half of 2027.
The announced technology stack is based on NVIDIA’s DRIVE Hyperion platform for autonomous vehicles, alongside its Alpamayo AI reasoning model. NVIDIA said the model was designed to handle complex and unpredictable driving conditions. Combining the platform and model gives the partnership a shared technical foundation for its multi-city plan, while Uber brings its transportation network and operational expertise. Uber’s chief executive said the expanded partnership combines advanced AI with the company’s global network and operating experience. NVIDIA’s chief executive said his company is connecting its ecosystem of robotaxi-ready partners with Uber’s network to expand the service to cities worldwide.
The announcement comes as Uber expands its efforts to build a network based on multiple partners, with stated targets extending beyond this partnership. In October 2025, the company said it would begin expanding its global autonomous vehicle fleet in 2027, targeting 100,000 vehicles. That figure relates to the global fleet target Uber announced at the time, not the number of vehicles allocated to the NVIDIA plan. In June 2026, Uber and Autobrains announced a robotaxi program in Munich combining Uber’s platform with Autobrains’ autonomous driving technology and NVIDIA’s DRIVE Hyperion platform. Those plans show Uber using the same platform in different initiatives with varied technology partners and vehicles.
Related Uber activity includes driverless services operating in selected markets. In Dubai, the company made Baidu Apollo Go vehicles available to riders through its platform at selected locations in Umm Suqeim and Jumeirah, and said it planned to expand the service. When the launch was announced on August 20, 2026, Uber said Apollo Go fleets had driven more than 350 million kilometers autonomously, including more than 240 million kilometers without a driver. In the competitive landscape, Reuters described Waymo as the earlier operator in commercial robotaxi services, while noting that Tesla’s manufacturing scale and financial resources could reshape the competition. NVIDIA also said BYD, Geely, Isuzu and Nissan are developing Level 4-ready vehicles on the DRIVE Hyperion platform.
Uber shares rose 2% in premarket trading the following day after the March announcement, according to Investing.com. In the latest EL7 data listed here, Uber shares closed at $65.25 and NVIDIA shares closed at $204.64 on October 30, 2026. These prices are that day’s closing prices, months after the announcement, and do not reflect the announcement session or the immediate market response to it. The next execution milestone identified by the companies is the start of service in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of 2027. They then target expanding operations to 28 cities worldwide by 2028.