Wayve has signed a deal with Microsoft to use Azure to scale its artificial intelligence-based autonomous driving technology.

The London-based company that’s developing software for self-driving cars will use Microsoft’s cloud platform in its research and development of a data-driven solution capable of navigating urban environments.

Wayve started as a member of the Microsoft for Startups: Autonomous Driving program and chose Azure for its reliability, security and ability to cope with large datasets and scale on demand.

Alex Kendall, chief executive at Wayve, said: “We are excited by the opportunities that the Azure deal will create for Wayve as we push our machine learning to new levels of scale using data from fleets of connected vehicles across the world.”

Wayve’s computer vision system learns from observing human driving via reinforcement. Traditional self-driving systems rely on expensive Lidar sensors, HD maps and heavy testing in a local area, meaning that they are unable to scale.

Wayve’s systems have trained in one city and then driven in a new city they’ve never seen before. This adaptability is why the company is aiming to be the first to deploy self-driving technology in 100 cities.

Michael Wignall, Azure business lead at Microsoft, added: “Microsoft is working with Wayve to help it develop advanced technology that could change the way people commute, move around cities and travel long distances.”

Share Story: