inDrive Plans 2027 Robotaxi Tests in Kazakhstan's Capital With Pony.ai and Nvidia

inDrive, the ride-hailing company that competes with Uber, plans to begin testing Pony.ai robotaxis in Kazakhstan's capital in the first half of 2027, TechCrunch reported. Nvidia is named alongside Pony.ai in the headline framing of the plan.

The confirmed elements are few: inDrive as the operator, Pony.ai as the supplier of the autonomous vehicles, a first-half 2027 window, and a Central Asian launch city. TechCrunch's summary does not give a fleet size, say whether tests will carry safety operators, or spell out what Nvidia contributes.

Pony.ai is one of China's best-known developers of autonomous-driving systems, and robotaxis have long been its main commercial scenario. For a company in that position, overseas testing is less about a demonstration than about putting the stack into road layouts, weather, and regulatory regimes that differ from the ones it was tuned on.

Central Asia is a legible choice for that. Compared with the crowded Chinese and American markets, autonomous testing there is still early, leaving more room to work with regulators and a thinner base of existing road data. For a team that wants to show its system travels, such a market is both a proving ground and a possible source of revenue.

The plan puts the test in the first half of 2027, which makes it a forecast rather than a deployment already under way. Testing normally precedes paid service, and the gap is filled by permits, safety records, and operating routines, so whether the timetable holds depends on progress over the next year or so.

inDrive's own calculation is straightforward. As a platform competing head-on with Uber across several emerging markets, it needs differentiated supply to keep its bargaining position, and robotaxis are among the most visible options available. Tying a vehicle-technology partner, a chip company, and a local operator into one arrangement is a familiar structure for projects of this kind.

Three things are worth watching: whether Kazakh authorities grant testing permission, how large the first fleet is, and whether Nvidia's role is supplying compute platforms or something deeper in the technical stack. Those details will decide whether this is a real regional deployment or an intention announced well ahead of time.