Self-driving And AI Company Wayve Raises Over $1 Billion Led By SoftBank Group

The progress made in artificial intelligence (AI) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has led to unprecedented innovation and growth in autonomous mobility technologies.

This includes the basic functionality of such vehicles like acceleration, parking or other maneuverability, as well as in-car technology, which could include driving assistance, entertainment and a wide range of other benefits.

Furthermore, the widescale adoption and increase in electric cars and other electric vehicles (EV) have helped the autonomous vehicle sector.

Bringing in breakthroughs in the self-driving vehicle industry is the 2017-founded British AI company Wayve, which is hailed as a market leader in Embodied AI for autonomous driving.

Over the years, Wayve has produced advanced AI software and foundational models for autonomy and autonomous vehicles, enabling vehicles to perceive, understand and navigate any environment.

Now, the company has come up with another exciting announcement that’s set to enhance its offerings.

So, what did Wayve reveal? Let’s explore!

What Did Wayve Announce?

Through a press release published on its website, Wayve, a market leader in Embodied AI for autonomous driving, announced that it had raised $1.05 billion in a Series C funding round.
The round was led by SoftBank Group and included contributions from NVIDIA, which came in as a new investor, as well as Microsoft, an existing investor.
The investment will help further advance Wayve’s mission to reimagine autonomous mobility through embodied intelligence.
As per the release, Embodied AI “represents the next frontier of AI innovation” that goes beyond GenAI and LLMs (Large Language Models) and is poised to become the most valuable application of AI.
As per the release, “The integration of Embodied AI into vehicles and robots will lead to a paradigm shift in how machines interact with and learn from human behavior in real-world environments.”
This technology can increase and enhance the safety and usability of autonomous driving systems including the ability to adjust to unexpected actions by drivers, pedestrians or environmental elements.
The company even developed foundational models to boost autonomy, sometimes dubbed “GPT for driving” enabling vehicles to safely drive through diverse environments.
The company was even the first to develop and test its end-to-end AI autonomous driving system on public roads, ushering in a shift towards AI, called AV2.0.
Ahead of this, the company has developed hardware-agnostic AI driving models for mapless autonomous driving and other technologies such as fleet learning, data infrastructure, evaluation and simulation platforms to rapidly enhance AI models.
The funding round even garnered attention from Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Sunak said, “I’m incredibly proud that the UK is the home for pioneers like Wayve who are breaking ground as they develop the next generation of AI models for self-driving cars. The fact that a homegrown British business has secured the biggest investment yet in a UK AI company is a testament to our leadership in this industry and that our plan for the economy is working.”

TechDogs-"An Image Of A Car Using Wayve Embodied AI Technology As Used In The Press Release"

Source

What Did Stakeholders Say?

Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, said, “At Wayve, our vision is to develop autonomous technology that not only becomes a reality in millions of vehicles but also earns people’s trust by seamlessly integrating into their everyday lives to unlock extraordinary value.”
[Contd.] “This significant funding milestone highlights our team’s unwavering conviction that Embodied AI will address the long-standing challenges the industry has faced in scaling this technology to everyone, everywhere.”
[Contd.] “Our collaboration with SoftBank, NVIDIA, and Microsoft will help advance our mission to redefine driving with AI at the core. This investment will enable us to develop and launch our first Embodied AI products for the automotive industry, empowering OEMs to provide consumers with trustworthy and beneficial automated driving experiences.”
Kentaro Matsui, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, Head of the New Business Office at SoftBank Group and Board Member at Wayve, said, “AI is revolutionizing mobility. Vehicles can now interpret their surroundings like humans, enabling enhanced decision-making that promises higher safety standards.”
[Contd.] “The potential of this type of technology is transformative; it could eliminate 99% of traffic accidents. SoftBank Group is delighted to be at the forefront of this effort with Wayve, as advanced intelligence redefines mobility and connectivity, contributing to a more convenient and safer society.”
Rishi Dhall, VP of Automotive Business at NVIDIA, said, “Wayve is pioneering new AI applications for their next-generation AV2.0 approach, built on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin and DRIVE Thor, which uses the new NVIDIA Blackwell architecture designed for transformer, LLM, and Generative AI workloads. Together, we can help enable self-driving vehicles that deliver the intelligence, dependability, and skill of the best human drivers.”
Dominik Wee, Corporate VP of Manufacturing and Mobility at Microsoft, said, “Microsoft is pleased to be working with Wayve to develop and deploy Wayve’s end-to-end AI autonomous driving products for automotive enterprise customers.”
[Contd.] “By utilizing Microsoft’s supercomputing capabilities and cloud computing technology, copilot-enabled developer platform, enterprise data management applications, and leading AI model commercialization expertise, Wayve can deliver and scale innovative Embodied AI solutions that enable safer and more accessible autonomous driving experiences.”

Do you think the investments received by giants such as SoftBank Group, NVIDIA and Microsoft show that Wayve are among the top companies in the autonomous mobility industry? Do you think this move hands them an advantage over competitors?

Let us know in the comments below!

First published on Wed, May 8, 2024

Enjoyed what you read? Great news – there’s a lot more to explore!

Dive into our content repository of the latest tech news, a diverse range of articles spanning introductory guides, product reviews, trends and more, along with engaging interviews, up-to-date AI blogs and hilarious tech memes!

Also explore our collection of branded insights via informative white papers, enlightening case studies, in-depth reports, educational videos and exciting events and webinars from leading global brands.

Head to the TechDogs homepage to Know Your World of technology today!

Disclaimer - Reference to any specific product, software or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by TechDogs nor should any data or content published be relied upon. The views expressed by TechDogs' members and guests are their own and their appearance on our site does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by TechDogs' Authors are those of the Authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of TechDogs or any of its officials. While we aim to provide valuable and helpful information, some content on TechDogs' site may not have been thoroughly reviewed for every detail or aspect. We encourage users to verify any information independently where necessary.

Tags:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Autonomous (Mobility)Electric VehiclesEmerging Technology Artificial Intelligence AI Autonomous Mobility Self-Driving EV Wayve SoftBank Group NVIDIA Microsoft

Join The Discussion

Emerging Technology