Shares of Nvidia and Swedish automaker Volvo rose for their third straight day Thursday after the companies announced a deal that will use Nvidia's autonomous driving platform to build self-driving vehicles.
U.S.-traded shares of Volvo and Nvidia's stock have both jumped by about 7% since the announcement early Tuesday of plans to use Nvidia's artificial intelligence for commercial vehicles, specifically public transportation, freight transport, refuse and recycling, construction, mining and forestry. Volvo is the world's second-biggest truck-maker.
Nvidia has been expanding aggressively into autonomous driving with new partnerships over the last two years with major automakers, including Toyota, Audi and Daimler. The deal with Volvo, the world's second-largest truck maker, helps Nvidia close ranks with Intel's Mobileye. Israeli tech company Mobileye has partnered with more than 25 automakers across the world on its advanced driver assist systems technology, which is used in semi-autonomous cars.
"Automation is a key technology area for the Volvo Group," said Lars Stenqvist, Volvo Group's Chief Technology Officer, in a statement. "With this partnership we will further increase our speed of development and strengthen our long-term capabilities and assets within automation, to the benefit of our customers in different segments and markets."
Wall Street analysts say the chip company's surge is more a byproduct of a good market and an easing of trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
"I think that the stock's room to grow is already reflected in its price," said David Wong, an analyst at Instinet Research.
Volvo plans on putting the technology to work later this year, using seven Volvo FH16 autonomous trucks to transport limestone for Norway's Broennoey Kalk from a mine to a nearby port, Volvo's autonomous solutions director Sasko Cuklev said in the statement.