Wayve, a UK-based leader in AI for autonomous driving, has signed a letter of intent with NVIDIA to evaluate a $500 million (拢371m) strategic investment in Wayve鈥檚 next funding round.聽
The London-headquartered firm鈥檚 foundation model approach, combined with NVIDIA鈥檚 computing platforms, equips automakers with advanced ’embodied AI’ and hardware.
Embodied AI represents the next frontier of AI innovation, going beyond generative AI and large language models. Wayve says the integration of embodied AI into vehicles and robots will lead to a paradigm shift in how machines interact with and learn from human behaviour in real-world environments.
This innovation holds tremendous potential to enhance the usability and safety of autonomous driving systems, empowering them with the intelligence to confidently navigate situations that do not follow strict patterns or rules, such as unexpected actions by drivers, pedestrians or environmental elements.
Founded in 2017, Wayve has emerged as a trailblazer in the field of embodied AI for autonomous driving, as the first company to develop and test an end-to-end AI autonomous driving system on public roads.
Wayve has successfully developed foundation models for autonomy, similar to a 鈥楪PT for driving鈥�, that can empower any vehicle to perceive its surroundings and safely drive through diverse environments.
It has developed hardware-agnostic AI driving models for mapless autonomous driving and a suite of innovative technologies, such as fleet learning, data infrastructure, evaluation, and simulation platforms designed to rapidly enhance their AI models using real-world and simulated data.
The investment builds on NVIDIA鈥檚 participation in Wayve鈥檚 拢850m Series C funding round alongside SoftBank and Microsoft.
NVIDIA boss Jensen Huang confirms 拢500m investment in Nscale
Wayve and NVIDIA have collaborated since 2018, with each generation of Wayve鈥檚 robot platforms accelerated by NVIDIA technology. The upcoming Wayve Gen 3 platform will be built on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor.
The firms say the latest platform will push the frontier of embodied AI, advancing the Wayve AI Driver toward eyes-off (Level 3) and driverless (Level 4) capabilities across urban and highway domains.
鈥淐ontinued support from a global technology leader like NVIDIA underscores confidence in our AV2.0 approach to building embodied AI and its potential to transform the future of mobility,鈥� said Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve.
Tech Prosperity Deal? It’s just ‘sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley’