InDrive, the ride-hailing app built on haggling over fares, is bringing robotaxis into the mix. The company plans to start testing autonomous vehicles in Kazakhstan in 2027, working with Pony.ai and Nvidia.
The pilot city is Astana, the Kazakh capital. InDrive CTO Yuri Misnik told TechCrunch that testing will begin in the first half of 2027.
Who brings what to the table
The partnership splits the work three ways. Pony.ai supplies the vehicles, inDrive supplies the riders, and Nvidia supplies the computing underneath.
Pony.ai’s seventh-generation autonomous vehicles will be built into the existing inDrive app. A rider in Astana won’t need to download anything new to hail a car with nobody behind the wheel.
Nvidia’s role sits under the hood. The vehicles will run on Nvidia’s Hyperion platform, which pairs the sensor suite with onboard computing, along with its Halos safety system.
Pony.ai already runs commercial robotaxi services in China and has been working to expand beyond its home market.
Why Kazakhstan, and why now
InDrive has operated in Kazakhstan since its founding in 2014, giving it a long-standing user base there.
Its business model differs from most ride-hailing platforms. Rather than the app setting the price, riders propose a fare and drivers can accept, decline or counter.
Memoranda signed between inDrive and Kazakh authorities across 2025 and 2026 set up a sandbox-style framework for piloting autonomous vehicles. Those agreements also cover a potential pilot route from the airport.
The robotaxi plan also slots into a broader national push on artificial intelligence. Kazakhtelecom has already deployed 400 Nvidia H200 and 480 B300 GPUs across Astana and Almaty.
Kazakhtelecom plans more than 1,000 additional units, along with 1,000 Vera Rubin GPUs, to arrive in 2027, timing that lines up with the robotaxi tests.
What this means for the robotaxi race
For Nvidia, the deal is another example of a familiar strategy. The company is positioning itself as the platform layer for autonomous driving, selling the compute and safety stack while partners handle vehicles and customers.
The GPU buildout at Kazakhtelecom shows Nvidia’s chips landing in the same country from a second direction, through data centers.
A first-half 2027 start is a test date, not a commercial launch. Those agreements with Kazakh authorities also cover a potential pilot route from the airport.
The next markers to watch are practical ones: whether the airport route actually goes live, how many vehicles join the initial fleet, and whether riders get the option to bid on driverless trips the way they do with human drivers.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.