European mobility platform Estonia’s Bolt has announced a strategic partnership with Nvidia to build the foundation for scaling autonomous vehicles in the European market. The initiative was presented at the NVIDIA GTC 2026 conference and combines Bolt’s extensive data collected from taxi services and car sharing systems with Nvidia’s advanced AI infrastructure and simulation technologies. The announcement is in line with Bolt’s long-term ambition, announced last year, which says it wants to have 100,000 autonomous vehicles on its ride-sharing platform by 2035.
Autonomous level 4 robotaxis
The cooperation project is focused on the development of the robotaxi service, which should meet the highest European safety and performance standards. The system will be based on the Nvidia Drive Hyperion architecture, which includes radar and lidar sensors and cameras, enabling vehicles with level 4 autonomy – which implies a high degree of autonomy in driving without the need for driver intervention in most situations.
At the heart of the development are Nvidia’s Cosmos and Alpamayo AI models, which allow machines to learn how the real world works by simulating realistic traffic scenarios. Bolt will use data from more than 850 cities where it currently operates to create a learning system based on real traffic conditions. Using Nvidia Omniverse tools, data from the field will be reconstructed into precise digital scenes to test the system before hitting the streets.
Especially for Europe
Special emphasis is placed on adapting to the specifics of European roads, where traffic rules and infrastructure differ significantly from country to country. The project attaches great importance to European regulations, especially privacy protection and GDPR compliance. All data processing from Bolt’s fleet will use advanced protection mechanisms to ensure full compliance with European Union cybersecurity standards. This aims to create a sovereign technology that is fully adapted to the legal framework of the community, say Bolt.
Apart from the commercial aspect, the initiative aims to encourage wider innovation within the Union. It has been announced that key tools, interfaces and reference implementations will be available as open source. Such an approach is designed to empower European SMEs and academia, while reducing Europe’s dependence on technology ecosystems outside its borders.
It was previously announced from Bolt that the software for the autonomous driving of their robot taxis will be created by Pony.ai, while the Stellantis concern will be responsible for the production of the cars themselves.