Startup Wayve Secures Huge Investment

Microsoft and Nvidia have provided financial support to Wayve, a startup, in order to advance the development of its embodied AI system for autonomous vehicles of the next generation

The funding for the startup that is developing AI technology to power self-driving vehicles is $1.05 billion.

Wayve’s most recent series C funding round, led by investment firm SoftBank and including tech titans Microsoft and Nvidia, represents the most significant investment ever made in an AI company in Europe.

Wayve stated that the recent financing round, which brought the company’s total debt to approximately $1.3 billion, will enable it to assist in developing autonomous vehicles in the future. 

This announcement deviates from the prevailing investment trend in autonomous driving despite aligning with the cross-industry interest in artificial intelligence. 

GM announced earlier this year that it is reducing expenditure on its autonomous car subsidiary Cruise by approximately half (US$1 billion). Apple abandoned its autonomous car project entirely to refocus on artificial intelligence. 

A Description of Wayve

Wayve, established in 2017 and headed by co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall, specializes in developing AI software solutions for autonomous driving. 

Wayve differentiates itself from other participants in the industry by focusing on OEM carmakers and fleet operators for technology installation in their vehicles, as opposed to developing or operating the vehicles themselves. 

Kendall disclosed that Wayve has decided against limiting its future options for its automated driving systems by forming a partnership with a single manufacturer.

The ’embodied AI’ technology emphasizes training autonomous vehicles to navigate by analyzing their interactions with the environment and human behaviour.

They employ deep learning and reinforcement learning techniques to train autonomous vehicles to navigate without relying significantly on high-definition maps, extensive sensor suites, preprogrammed interactions, or detailed maps.

The AI that powers autonomous vehicles

Wayve’s AV2.0 with end-to-end learning AI driving model combines perception and control in a single neural network architecture. It is said to help vehicles navigate complex urban environments better by making decisions directly from raw sensor data through self-supervised learning.

The startup was the first to develop and test an end-to-end autonomous transportation system utilizing deep learning on public roads.

In contrast to several other autonomous vehicles, such as Alphabet’s Waymo, which safely navigates using a combination of deep learning, traditional machine learning techniques, and rule-based algorithms, this vehicle employs a unique combination of methods. 

Development is underway to train AV2.0’s LLM on photorealistic simulations, implement generative AI for object prediction, and conduct model introspection. AV2.0 is capable of operating on any form of vehicle, from delivery vans to passenger cars. 

Wayve and Microsoft, an established investor, are collaborating to implement supercomputing technologies to develop AI foundation models in autonomous vehicles to contribute to this effort.

The United Kingdom unicorn emphasized its conviction that its AI autonomous driving technology will be the panacea for safety concerns about unanticipated actions by pedestrians, drivers, or environmental factors, which have historically impeded the implementation of such technologies. 

Thematic Intelligence: Autonomous Vehicles, a report by the research firm GlobalData, indicates that the transition from Level 1 to Level 2 autonomy has been negligible compared to what is required for Level 3 “eyes-off” AV operation.

Currently, Wayve promotes autonomous vehicle solutions spanning from L2+ to L4.

According to a report by GlobalData, each new autonomous vehicle requires approximately US$700 worth of AI processors. 

The entry of AI processor leader Nvidia as a shareholder highlights the industry’s confidence in the startup and the advantages it stands to gain from access to the new investors’ portfolio of AI offerings.

Wayve-powered technology is currently present in the advanced driver systems of six vehicle platforms, including the Ford Mustang MachE and Jaguar’s electric I-PACE.