California-based startup started manufacturing electric tractors powered by NVIDIA chips

Monarch Tractor kick-started production of AI powered self-driving electric farming vehicles MK-V that can operate on their own.

Monarch Tractor equipped MK-V tractors with six NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX platforms, which are responsible for vehicle spatialization without GPS. Startup owners say that sometimes the tractors will need to work in places that have no GPS signal. Instead, each MK-V uses six regular and two 3D cameras that feed information to the on-board computer.

NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX allows you to optimize power consumption and increase battery life. According to Monarch, each tractor can operate for a maximum of 14 hours without recharging reaching up to 70 horsepower. The vehicle collects and analyzes crop data daily such as current growth stages and health metrics.

Monarch Tractor was founded in 2018. Three years later, the startup raised $61 million in a Series B. The total investment reached $110 million.

Production of the MK-V was launched at the former General Motors plant in Ohio with backing from Foxconn. The base price for the tractor is $68,000. Deliveries are expected to begin in the summer of 2023.