London-based autonomous vehicle technology group Wayve has adapted its embodied AI system to the roads of Japan, demonstrating the pace at which it can be brought to new markets.
The company’s flagship AI system AV2.0, which allows the operation of self-driving cars, was tasked with adapting to Japan’s driving environment.
Despite its complexity and the dissonance with the driving environment of the firm’s home market, Wayve said its AI driver was able to seamlessly adapt, completing its first drives in Japan on the first day with no maps or re-engineering required.
A month later, the AI driver had collected enough local data to improve its performance by double the company’s internal metric. At three months, Wayve said its system had developed a global baseline model that performed consistently in Japan.
Wayve’s AI driver has therefore been dispatched to a Japanese automaker, demonstrating the commercial readiness of the technology.
As part of the company’s Japanese expansion, chief executive Alex Kendall rode with Masayoshi Son, one of the country’s most influential business leaders and the head of Wayve investor SoftBank, for “the Tokyo Challenge” – a drive through the capital.
Wayve earlier this year launched an autonomous taxi trial in London through a partnership with Uber, as it looks to progress with the commercialisation of its technology.
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