Wayve, Stellantis and NVIDIA join the French government in AV distribution – Unite.AI

Wayve, Stellantis and NVIDIA announced a collaboration with the French government on October 23, 2026, focused on advancing the deployment of autonomous vehicles in France and accelerating the development of the technology across the European Union. The announcement was made at Autonomous vehicle seats in Paris.

Wayve, a London-based developer of embedded artificial intelligence for driving, said the initiative combines Stellantis’ L4-Ready platforms and vehicle engineering and manufacturing expertise with Wayve AI Driver, which will integrate the NVIDIA Halos operating system on top of the NVIDIA Hyperion processing and sensor architecture. According to Wayve, these combined capabilities position France as the base for an autonomous vehicle ecosystem covering the entire value chain, from chips to vehicles. The initiative builds on existing collaborations between partners.

French context and local commitment

Wayve referenced the French ride-hailing market, which the company described as one of the largest in Europe, and the AI ​​Action Summit held in Paris, where €109 billion in AI investment was announced in 2025. Wayve said these conditions make France a suitable place to launch the collaboration and called the country an essential partner in its expansion.

Wayve also called the announcement an important demonstration of how industry and government should work closely to deploy the technology safely and responsibly in the coming years. The collaboration aims to strengthen the autonomous driving ecosystem in France and across Europe to compete globally, the company said, by combining expertise in artificial intelligence, computing and engineering, and vehicle manufacturing.

Engagement with trade unions, city authorities and mobility stakeholders will be led by local partners responsible for transport operations. The stated goal is to ensure that the transition to autonomous transportation benefits workers, communities and cyclists across the ecosystem. Wayve said the collaboration, in partnership with the French government, aims to help make France a leading country in Europe for AI-based mobility.

Philippe Tabarot, France’s transport minister, said France is committed to adapting its regulatory framework so that the development of autonomous vehicles can accelerate while stringent security and data sovereignty requirements remain in place. “Bringing together unions, city authorities and mobility stakeholders, this collaboration embodies the collaborative spirit of the Assises du Véhicule Autonome, as well as the approach needed to move from trials to real-world implementation,” Tabarot said in the announcement.

Statements from Wayve, Stellantis and NVIDIA

Kaity Fischer, vice president of mobility and autonomous operations at Wayve, said France is leading preparations for autonomous vehicles and called this an important time to start the collaboration. Working directly with the French government and partners, he said, can help shape a safe and responsible implementation of the technology and accelerate its development in France and across the EU.

Anne Laliron, SVP of Technology Research at Stellantis, said the collaboration will help accelerate the delivery of autonomous driving technologies that will make mobility safer and more convenient for customers. He added that while the initiative’s impact is global, France is one of Stellantis’ key centers for engineering and technology development.

Ali Kani, VP Automotive at NVIDIA, said that safe autonomous mobility in Europe requires deep collaboration between artificial intelligence, computing and vehicle engineering. He said the combination of the NVIDIA Hyperion platform, Wayve’s embedded artificial intelligence and Stellantis’ automotive expertise provides the foundation for this ambition. By working with the French government and local partners, he added, companies can help build an ecosystem that extends the benefits of autonomous driving to communities across France and Europe.

Existing Stellantis-Wayve partnership

The new initiative extends an established relationship between Stellantis and Wayve. Their strategic technology partnership, announced in May 2026, combines Wayve’s end-to-end AI driving intelligence with Stellantis’ STLA AutoDrive technology platform, automotive engineering expertise and scalable vehicle architectures.

On October 9, 2026, at the Wave by Vento 2026 event in Turin, Italy, the companies unveiled the Fiat 500e and Maserati Grecale development vehicles equipped with a level 2++ hands-free door-to-door supervised driving assistant enabled by the integration of Wayve AI Driver with STLA AutoDrive. The companies said the two vehicles went from integration to real-world road testing in less than four weeks, following an earlier integration with the 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

According to Wayve, the AI ​​Driver is built on end-to-end artificial intelligence that learns from real-world experience rather than relying on high-definition maps, manually coded driving rules, or custom hardware. The partners describe a shared, scalable AI foundation that connects Level 2++ supervised driving for private vehicles with future L4-Ready platforms intended to power driverless mobility services for high-usage operations.

“We are building a general-purpose AI driver that can power any vehicle, anywhere,” Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, said in the Turin announcement. The companies said the door-to-door supervised driving assistant, available on highways and in urban environments, is expected to launch in 2028, starting in North America.