Wayve, a London-based company that applies deep learning to autonomous vehicle control, is working with Microsoft to leverage the supercomputing infrastructure needed to “support the development of AI-based models for driverless vehicles on a global scale”.
The collaboration, says Wayve and Microsoft, “will bring self-driving transportation experiences to more people and organisations faster.”
The announcement follows Microsoft’s participation in Wayve’s $200M Series B investment round. Under the deal, the companies will bring together Wayve’s expertise using deep neural networks to train AI models with Microsoft’s engineering excellence in powering large-scale AI systems.
It also extends their existing collaboration, which commenced in 2020, when Wayve chose Microsoft Azure to help accelerate the development of its technology.
Wayve already has a fleet of vehicles testing in cities across the UK, and has set itself a target to be the first to deploy autonomy in 100 cities.
Alex Kendall, CEO of Wayve says, “Joining forces with Microsoft to design the supercomputing infrastructure needed to accelerate deep learning for autonomous mobility is an opportunity that we are honoured to lead. Deep learning systems thrive on data, and we’ve put an immense amount of effort into understanding what it takes to get these systems on the road. We are excited by the opportunities that this collaboration will create as we push deep learning to new levels of scale.”
Mark Russinovich, CTO, Azure at Microsoft, adds, “Supercomputing capabilities are key to processing the immense amount of data required for the simulation, validation, and training of AI models that enable safe and secure autonomous driving.”
