Pre-market surged over 20%! Einride (ENRD.US) reached a strategic partnership with Nvidia (NVDA.US) to accelerate deployment of autonomous heavy trucks.

According to Golden Ten Data APP, Swedish autonomous driving truck manufacturer Einride AB (ENRD.US) announced on Monday that it has established a strategic partnership with Nvidia (NVDA.US) to accelerate the development and deployment of autonomous heavy-duty trucks. Boosted by this news, Einride's shares surged by over 20% during pre-market trading on Monday.

Under the partnership, Einride will adapt Nvidia's DRIVE Hyperion platform for heavy-duty trucks, expanding its computing, sensors, software, and safety architecture to meet freight operation demands. Einride also plans to leverage the Nvidia Exemplar Cloud partner for large-scale deployment of the Nvidia Blackwell architecture to train, test, and optimize its autonomous driving models. Nvidia will provide the underlying computing platform and AI tools for Einride's autonomous driving systems.

Einride CTO Henrik Green said: "We have the customers, operational experience, and technology. Building the next generation of Einride Driver on the Nvidia Hyperion platform will enable us to expand autonomous deployment across the freight networks where we already serve customers."

Currently, Einride operates hundreds of electric trucks for large freight clients in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. The company expects demand to reach 1,500 to 2,000 vehicles by 2028, with about 80% suitable for automation in the mid-term. This new demand will be in addition to its already deployed driverless trucks.

Rishi Dhall, Vice President of Automotive at Nvidia, said that autonomous trucks—which use self-driving vehicles requiring little human intervention—provide an opportunity to improve the safety and efficiency of global freight transport.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Stockholm, Einride began trading on the Nasdaq this summer after completing a merger with blank-check company Legato Merger Corp. III; before accounting for transaction proceeds, the deal valued Einride’s equity at $1.35 billion. The company develops electric autonomous freight vehicles and software platforms for clients such as PepsiCo (PEP.US), as well as European brewers Carlsberg and Heineken (HEINY.US).

The partnership with Nvidia is the latest step toward the broader adoption of autonomous or driverless trucks. Previously, Waymo's self-driving passenger taxis, owned by Alphabet (GOOGL.US), and Tesla's (TSLA.US) driverless taxis have already become popular in US cities; Daimler Truck North America has tested highway trucks for the US market; and Caterpillar's (CAT.US) autonomous and remote-controlled bulldozers are also being used at select landfill sites.