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• General Motors will start rolling out more powerful Nvidia computers on its vehicles 2028 onwards.
• The automaker is moving towards a centralized architecture which reduces the number of on-board computers and shortens wiring.
• GM will roll out these upgrades to both fully electric and combustion engine models.

Update: This article includes new information on how GM’s centralized electrical system is different from a zonal architecture.

General Motors is planning to build a new generation of vehicles that will feel more like Teslas and Rivians, and less like today’s Chevys and Cadillacs.

The automaker announced on Wednesday that, starting from 2028, its vehicles will incorporate a highly powerful centralized computer and next-generation electrical architecture, enabling them to become more autonomous over time and more rapidly improve through over-the-air upgrades.

This marks a key stride in GM’s software-defined vehicle era, a concept that Tesla first pioneered and the entire auto industry is now trying to adapt to. But unlike GM’s rivals, which are marrying high-tech software mainly with EVs, GM said its new architecture is powertrain-agnostic, meaning even combustion engine vehicles will benefit from it.

“Our system advances far beyond the zonal architecture others have announced,” Dave Richardson, GM’s senior vice president of software and services engineering, told reporters during the GM Forward event in New York on Wednesday.

GM Forward Event 2025

Photo by: Patrick George

“We centralize core systems like propulsion, body, lighting, thermal and chassis to enable broader software reuse across the vehicle. At the heart of this transformation is an in-house design, liquid-cooled central compute unit, which is going to enable faster development cycles, more efficient software updates and seamless scalability across every GM brand,” he added.

GM said the Cadillac Escalade IQ will be the first to receive the upgrade in 2028, featuring fewer onboard computers and modules that will enable faster software updates and improve reliability. The updates will allow GM vehicles to always be “connected, awake and available, with near instant responses to remote commands.” 

Cadillac Escalade IQL with Lidar.

Photo by: General Motors

The Escalade IQ will also be the first GM vehicle to get eyes-off driving (it’s already hands-off on select highways), taking its already popular Super Cruise driver-assistance system to the next level. The upgrade comes courtesy of a LIDAR sensor and a new Nvidia AGX Drive Thor computing platform. And for the first time, GM said Super Cruise will be able to drive off the highways too, cautiously expanding into more complex urban environments.

As GM moves deeper into autonomous driving, reliability and computing power will only become more critical. “It’s not often described as a robot, but that’s what it is, and as we build this intelligence into it, it has to continue to work flawlessly at high speeds,” GM’s chief product officer, Sterling Anderson, told reporters. 

The automaker said that it’s no stranger to rolling out software updates en masse. Some 4.5 million GM vehicles are already capable of receiving over-the-air updates, thanks to the Vehicle Intelligence Platform (VIP) that was upgraded in 2022 to incorporate infotainment and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) onto a single computing platform.

GM Forward Event 2025

Photo by: Patrick George

That was just the first step towards software-defined vehicles, the smartphones on wheels that the auto industry has been talking a big game about for years. GM thinks now it’s ready to go all in.

The Nvidia AGX Drive Thor will serve as the main computer on future GM vehicles. That will not only consolidate infotainment and ADAS functions but also connect everything else, from propulsion and steering to braking and other safety systems, through an Ethernet backbone.

In theory, that means fewer wires connecting each system separately, which saves weight and reduces complexity. It will also allow faster communication between different vehicle functions. We’ve seen other automakers do that too—Rivian said zonal architecture helped it save more than two miles of wiring on the upcoming R2, leading to significant weight savings.

Update: GM said its new electrical system and computer are different from a zonal architecture rivals have been developing. “Separating the thinking part of the car from the propulsion system allows you to have a central place that you’re doing all of the processing for the vehicle,” Gary Cygan, the director of platform engineering at General Motors, told InsideEVs. 

Unlike Tesla or Rivian, which produce only a handful of electric-only models, GM is working to transform its portfolio of gasoline and electric models with the new architecture. Having a centralized compute platform helps the automaker release advanced software upgrades to different propulsion systems, body types and small and large vehicles, Cygan said.

A traditional car might use over 100 different electronic control units that each handle a discrete task and don’t communicate with the others. A centralized architecture simplifies the system into a smaller number of far more powerful and coordinated computers. 

GM Forward Event 2025

Photo by: Patrick George

For GM vehicles, this overhaul will mean 10 times more software updates compared to current systems, real-time safety updates for things such as Super Cruise and a system that has room to continuously grow and become more capable.

GM said this allows for “hardware freedom” and “radical simplification,” meaning certain components remain isolated from the software layer and can be upgraded without rewriting the code, such as brake actuators, cameras, in-vehicle screens, and more.

Nvidia says its Drive AGX Thor centralized artificial intelligence computer can perform up to 1,000 trillion operations per second (TOPS), which would enable vehicles to constantly gather data and make real-time self-driving decisions on the road.

Photo by: General Motors

However, as we’ve seen with Tesla, Volkswagen and even the current generation of GM vehicles, SDVs are anything but easy. Automakers’ early efforts have been marred by bugs and glitches, including sudden power losses, digital keys not functioning, and leaving drivers stranded.

Still, this is the path pretty much the entire auto industry is moving towards. Simpler and more powerful computers are also what’s needed to deliver more autonomous vehicles. 

“Our architecture, our batteries, electrical systems, computing and vehicle architectures that bring our cars to life and enable what we can do in software,” Anderson said. “Then comes the intelligence layer. This largely lies in software. This is where we enable our vehicles to perceive their environment, understand their occupants and adapt intelligently to every circumstance.”

And this won’t just be limited to the expensive Escalade. GM said every future model will be built on this same advanced platform.

Additional reporting from Patrick George.

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