Waabi, the autonomous trucking startup founded by AI pioneer Raquel Urtasun, is taking a unique “AI-first approach” to accelerate the deployment of autonomous vehicles. Unlike Tesla’s vision-first approach, which relies on imitation learning and extensive data collection, Waabi has developed a closed-loop simulator called Waabi World to train its AI system. This simulator has helped the startup launch commercial pilots in Texas and is paving the way for a fully driverless launch in 2025. However, Urtasun envisions that Waabi’s technology can be applied to more than just trucks, including robotaxis and warehouse robotics.
The promise of Waabi’s technology has attracted significant investment, with a recent $200 million Series B round led by Uber and Khosla Ventures. This is notable considering the setbacks experienced by the AV industry in recent years, with several companies closing operations or facing regulatory scrutiny. However, AI-focused players like Wayve and Applied Intuition have also secured impressive capital raises in 2021, indicating investor interest in generative AI systems that can be deployed in the physical world.
Waabi’s system stands out because it doesn’t rely on massive datasets or large language models. Instead, it focuses on reasoning-based AI that can generalize from a few examples and handle unknown situations safely. This approach is more scalable, capital efficient, and crucial for safety-critical systems that need to react quickly. The partnership with Nvidia’s Drive Thor will provide Waabi with access to automotive-grade compute power at scale.
The Waabi Driver demonstrates its ability to perceive and reason about the world by understanding objects, predicting other road users’ behavior, and adapting to different driving scenarios. Urtasun highlights that the same architecture can be applied to other autonomy use cases, such as warehouse operations.
Overall, Waabi’s innovative AI-first approach and its ability to generalize and reason like a human are positioning the startup as a strong player in the autonomous vehicle industry. With significant investment and a clear vision for the future, Waabi has the potential to revolutionize not only autonomous trucking but also other industries that can benefit from its technology.
