Uber rival inDrive will begin testing Pony.ai robotaxis in Kazakhstan's capital in early 2027, backed by Nvidia infrastructure.
inDrive confirmed plans to test Pony.ai's autonomous vehicles in Astana starting the first half of 2027, marking one of the first robotaxi deployments targeting Central Asia. Nvidia is supplying infrastructure for the pilot, extending its footprint into a region with limited existing autonomous vehicle activity.
The move positions inDrive to compete on autonomy with Uber and other ride-hail incumbents in a market where regulatory and infrastructure barriers to robotaxis remain lower than in the US or China.
Ride-hail operators outside the US and China are using robotaxi partnerships to leapfrog slower-moving Western regulatory environments, and Central Asia could become a testbed before wider rollout. For Nvidia, this is another data point in its push to embed compute infrastructure into every new autonomy market, not just established ones.
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