Waymo is already preparing for expansion. The latest round of fresh capital raised by Alphabet subsidiary and Google sister company Waymo this week is no different. The self-driving technology company raised a total of 5.6 billion dollars (5.2 billion euros) from Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Perry Creek, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and T. Rowe Price in an oversubscribed round alongside its parent company Alphabet itself.
To date, Waymo operates a robotaxi service in San Francisco, Phoenix and Los Angeles. In Austin and Atlanta, there is a partnership with Uber through which Waymo robotaxis can be requested. With this fresh capital, the company, which announced in September that it already provides 100,000 paid, driverless rides per week, will now expand into other cities and regions.
Waymo’s Artificial Intelligence
Srikanth Thirumalai, Vice President of Onboard Engineering at Waymo, sat down to answer Fortune magazine’s questions and gave some details on the neural network used.
Waymo has developed a large-scale AI model called the Waymo Foundation Model that supports the vehicle’s ability to perceive its surroundings, predicts the behavior of others on the road, simulates scenarios and makes driving decisions. This massive model functions similarly to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, which are trained on vast datasets to learn patterns and make predictions. Just as companies like OpenAI and Google have built newer multimodal models to combine different types of data (such as text as well as images, audio or video), Waymo’s AI integrates sensor data from multiple sources to understand its environment.
The Waymo Foundation Model is a single, massive-sized model, but when a rider gets into a Waymo, the car works off a smaller, onboard model that is “distilled” from the much larger one — because it needs to be compact enough in order to run on the car’s power. The big model is used as a “Teacher” model to impart its knowledge and power to smaller ‘Student’ models — a process widely used in the field of generative AI. The small models are optimized for speed and efficiency and run in real time on each vehicle—while still retaining the critical decision-making abilities needed to drive the car.
As a result, perception and behavior tasks, including perceiving objects, predicting the actions of other road users and planning the car’s next steps, happen on-board the car in real time. The much larger model can also simulate realistic driving environments to test and validate its decisions virtually before deploying to the Waymo vehicles. The on-board model also means that Waymos are not reliant on a constant wireless internet connection to operate — if the connection temporarily drops, the Waymo doesn’t freeze in its tracks.
It has also been revealed that Waymo is using around four NVIDIA H100 GPUSs at a unit price of 10,000 dollars per vehicle to cover the necessary computing requirements. The number of sensors – five lidars, 29 cameras, 4 radars – adds another 40,000 to 50,000 dollars. This would put the cost of a current Waymo robotaxi at around 150,000 dollars (around 139,000 euros)
Bücher zum Silicon Valley, der Zukunft, künstlicher Intelligenz, dem aufregenden Thema Innovation, der Automobilindustrie oder wie man sich bloß nicht entschuldigt, mit anderen Worten alles gute Bücher von mir.
Und die will ich Dir ans Herzen legen.Alle Bücher gibt es bei Amazon, beim Plassen- und Beck-Verlag oder beim Buchhändler des Vertrauens.
Sogar als ebook gibt es sie beispielsweise hier.
Geely/Zeekr
Waymo’s Chinese partner Geely/Zeekr in turn presented more details of its Zeekr Mix, which is intended as the vehicle platform for the next generation of Waymo’s robotaxis. With a wheelbase of 3,008 millimetres and despite a length of 4.7 meters, the Mix is very manoeuvrable and has a turning radius of just five meters. There are two variants with a range of 550 and 702 kilometers respectively, which are powered by the inexpensive iron-based batteries from Zeekr and the more energy-intensive batteries from CATL. The five-seater van also offers a 1.5 meter wide opening area and a vehicle floor height of 390 millimeters for passengers. The movable center console allows children to play or families to eat together in an area of 1.5 square meters in the interior.
Nevertheless, the partnership is somewhat uncertain, as the USA has imposed punitive tariffs on imports from Chinese manufacturers. The recent announcement of a partnership with Hyundai as a supplier of robotaxi platforms is therefore also of some significance for Waymo.
This article was also published in German.
{Categories} _Category: Applications{/Categories}
{URL}https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2024/10/27/waymos-5-6-billion-round-and-details-of-the-ai-used/{/URL}
{Author}Mario Herger{/Author}
{Image}https://derletztefuehrerscheinneuling.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/book_covers_12b_small.png{/Image}
{Keywords}Autonomous Car,Robotaxi,Waymo,featured{/Keywords}
{Source}Applications{/Source}
{Thumb}https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/waymo-zeekr.jpg{/Thumb}