Wayve CEO and co-founder Alex Kendall.
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london – Uber and Wayve, a British artificial intelligence startup, announced a partnership on Thursday that will see the two companies collaborate on autonomous driving technology.
As part of the deal, Uber will also invest an undisclosed minority stake in Wayve, the companies said in statements. This investment is an extension of Wayve US$1 billion Series C financing A funding round announced earlier this year was led by Japanese tech investors SoftBank.
American chip maker NVIDIA and software giants Microsoft Also invested in Wayve’s Series C financing.
“Wayve is building a ‘universal’ driving AI that can power all levels of driving automation for any type of vehicle, anywhere in the world,” Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall said in a statement.
He said that Wayve, together with Uber, is “pleased to work with automotive OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to bring self-driving technology to consumers faster.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi added that the two companies “share a vision to reimagine mobility and make it better.”
“Wayve’s advanced approach to embedded artificial intelligence holds great promise as we strive to build a modern world of car sharing, electric and autonomous driving,” said Khosrowshahi.
The statement said that Uber will integrate Wayve’s AV2.0 technology (an algorithm-based product that enables vehicles to drive themselves using data from the physical environment) into consumer vehicles “to enable a range of autonomous driving functions.”
Wayve’s AV2.0 product is an end-to-end artificial intelligence solution that allows automakers to equip existing vehicles with Level 2+ advanced driver assistance and Level 3 and 4 autonomous driving capabilities.
The different levels of vehicle autonomy are defined by SAE International, the global standards body for the mobility engineering industry.
In the future, Uber plans to launch self-driving cars equipped with Wayve technology on its app, the companies said.
Previously, Uber had its own self-driving car division, but it sell the division In 2020, Aurora Technologies became an Amazon-backed self-driving car company. As part of the deal, Uber said it would invest $400 million in Aurora.
The ride-sharing giant last week announced a similar partnership with GM-backed self-driving startup Cruise to offer driverless rides on its ride-hailing network.
Uber As part of the business partnership, the company also offers rides in vehicles operated by Google’s self-driving spinoff Waymo. In 2019, Waymo announced a similar partnership with Uber rival Lyft.
