Alex Kendall, CEO and co-founder of Wayve.
Wave
London — Uber The New York Times and British artificial intelligence startup Wave announced a partnership on Thursday that will see the two companies work together on self-driving technology.
As part of the deal, Uber will invest an undisclosed amount in Wave for a minority stake, the companies said in a statement. The investment is an extension of Wave’s $1 billion Series C funding round announced earlier this year and led by the Japanese tech investor. SoftBank.
American semiconductor manufacturer NVIDIA Software giant Microsoft We also invested in Wayve’s Series C.
“Wave is developing a ‘universal’ driving AI that can enable any level of driving automation in any vehicle type, anywhere in the world,” Wave co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall said in a statement.
He said that along with Uber, Wave is “excited to be working with automotive OEMs.” [original equipment makers] “This is to bring autonomous driving technology to consumers sooner.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi added that the two companies “share a vision to reimagine mobility for the better.”
“Wave’s advanced embodied AI approach holds great promise as we move toward a world where modern vehicles are shared, electric and autonomous,” Khosrowshahi said.
According to the statement, Uber will integrate Wayve’s AV2.0 technology — an algorithm-based product that uses data from the physical environment to enable vehicles to drive themselves — into its consumer vehicles to “enable a range of self-driving capabilities.”
Wayve’s AV2.0 product is an end-to-end AI solution that enables automakers to equip existing vehicles with Level 2+ advanced driver assistance features and Level 3 and 4 autonomous driving capabilities.
The various levels of vehicle autonomy will be determined by SAE International, the global standards body for the mobility engineering industry.
The two companies said Uber plans to eventually launch self-driving cars powered by Wave’s technology through its own app.
Uber previously had its own self-driving car division, but sold it to Aurora Technologies, an Amazon-backed self-driving car company, in 2020. As part of that deal, Uber announced it would invest $400 million in Aurora.
The ride-sharing giant announced last week a similar partnership with General Motors-backed self-driving startup Cruise to offer driverless rides on its ride-hailing network.
Uber The company also offers rides in vehicles operated by Google’s self-driving division, Waymo, as part of a commercial partnership that announced a similar partnership with Uber competitor Lyft in 2019.
