German automotive suppliers Continental and ZF Friedrichshafen have signed up to use the platform in their “level 2+” self-driving systems going into production starting next year.

ZF is also offering for the first time the option of using a chip made by rival Xilinx along with Nvidia.

The level 2+ autonomous vehicles would add greater automation capabilities such as highway merge, lane change, lane splits and personal mapping to existing advanced driver assist systems (ADAS).

Nvidia said the platform integrates its Xavier system-on-chip (SoC) processors and the Drive software to process data from sensors outside the vehicle and inside the cabin.

Drive AutoPilot is part of the Nvidia Drive platform, currently being used by hundreds of companies involved in self-driving cars - including Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] and Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), and also by software developers, auto suppliers, sensor and mapping companies.