Nvidia Stock Bounces Back After Uber Clarification

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NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) stock began to rally in the pre-market trading hours on Thursday after plunging on Tuesday. The chip maker increased its outlook for the data center market on Wednesday, but that wasn’t enough to give its shares a boost. NVIDIA stock plunged on Tuesday after the company said it was pausing the tests of its self-driving car system in the wake of the deadly accident involving an autonomous Uber vehicle.

Given the relationship between NVIDIA and Uber, many investors may have taken that move to mean that the ride-sharing firm was using the chip maker’s self-driving system, but NVIDIA management clarified this morning that it isn’t the case.

NVIDIA stock sells off as sentiment shifts on DRIVE platform

The chip maker held its GPU conference this week, and analysts have generally been positive on the announcements that have come from the conference. On the last day of the conference, CEO Jensen Huang clarified the relationship with Uber in response to a question. More than 370 companies do use the DRIVE platform, but Uber isn’t one of them. Huang said the ride-sharing firm “develops its own sensing and drive technology,” although it is using NVIDIA’s GPUs and other processors to run its software and self-driving platform.

Huang’s comments make sense, given the report we heard recently that Uber was close to selling its own self-driving technology to Toyota. It seems pretty safe to say that the deal might be off—if there really was one pending in the first place.

This is an important distinction because it clears the chip maker’s DRIVE platform of implication in the deadly accident involving an autonomous Uber vehicle that struck a pedestrian. Even though the DRIVE platform wasn’t implicated in the accident, NVIDIA decided to pause open-world testing of the platform, although it still is running closed tests. The chipmaker said it’s waiting for the results of the investigation into the Uber accident to see what it can learn from it.