Ride-hailing company inDrive announced a partnership with Chinese autonomous driving firm Pony.ai and Nvidia to begin testing robotaxis in Kazakhstan. The three companies signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday to explore bringing Pony.ai’s autonomous vehicles to the inDrive platform. Testing is scheduled to start in the capital city of Astana in the first half of 2027.
Partnership Structure and Technology
Yuri Misnik, inDrive’s chief technology officer, confirmed that the initial phase of the project will include a safety operator in the vehicle. The long-term objective is to transition to fully driverless operations. Under the agreement, Pony.ai will supply its Gen-7 robotaxis for use in Kazakhstan. inDrive will manage the distribution of these rides through its existing application.
Nvidia will provide the underlying artificial intelligence infrastructure. This includes the Hyperion hardware platform and the Halos safety system. Nvidia also offers the Alpamayo model and synthetic data tools to help test autonomous driving systems across various scenarios. The company stated that its ready-made sensor and computing foundation is designed to reduce development costs.
Ali Kani, Nvidia’s vice president of automotive, noted that these cost reductions are especially important for emerging markets. He explained that ride-hailing services in these regions are already priced competitively, so autonomous options must maintain low costs to succeed.
Testing in Challenging Conditions
Astana presents a unique environment for autonomous vehicle development. The city experiences harsh winters with significant snow and ice, which creates difficult conditions for sensors and driving algorithms. Arsen Tomsky, founder and chief executive of inDrive, said that launching in Astana offers a chance to evaluate technology in severe weather. He added that success in these conditions could provide valuable data for expanding to other locations with similar climates.
The announcement coincided with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s first visit to Kazakhstan. The move aligns with broader government plans in Kazakhstan to launch autonomous taxi services in 2027. The government has introduced regulations allowing autonomous vehicles to be tested on specific public roads in Astana and two other cities.
Global Expansion Strategy
This deal marks another step in Pony.ai’s international growth. The company aims to operate more than 3,500 robotaxis in over 20 cities worldwide by the end of 2026. This represents a significant increase from the 1,975 vehicles it had at the end of June. The partnership also follows recent moves by other ride-hailing firms to enter the autonomous space. Uber recently announced plans to test Pony.ai vehicles in London and has partnered with Wayve for supervised autonomous rides in the same city.
inDrive is also exploring autonomous opportunities in the Middle East. The company signed a separate agreement in December with Saudi Arabia’s AI Driver to deploy WeRide vehicles in Riyadh. That pilot was initially targeted for the first half of 2026, though the current status of those tests is unclear.
Misnik stated that the company is reviewing several other markets for future deployments. He emphasized that a favorable regulatory environment is a primary requirement for launching autonomous services. inDrive currently operates in more than 1,200 cities across 47 countries and has expanded into delivery and financial services.
Source: TechCrunch
