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LONDON – British startup Wave said on Wednesday it would use the supercomputer infrastructure designed for the firm by its investor Microsoft to process huge amounts of data to create machine learning-based models for self-driving vehicles.
Wave’s technology relies on machine learning using camera sensors mounted on the outside of the vehicle, where the system learns from traffic patterns and other drivers’ behavior, rather than the conventional method of relying on detailed digital mapping and coding to tell vehicles how to operate. .
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“Microsoft is delivering supercomputing muscle,” Alex Kendall, Wave’s chief executive, told Reuters. “What we’re trying to do is go beyond what is possible for today’s commercial cloud offerings.”
Kendall said Microsoft would be able to process terabytes of data – 1 trillion bytes, or about the equivalent of about an hour of consumer video – that Wave’s car produces per minute.
This will help the startup as it expands its self-driving technology for trials in last-mile delivery vehicles with UK online grocery technology company Ocado and supermarket chain Asda.
Trials for those grocery supplies will begin this year with a human safety operator on board.
“We see this as a commercial fleet offer,” he said. “Thus we think that autonomy is going to come to the market first.”
Earlier this year, Microsoft participated in the বি 200 million Series B funding round of London-based startups. (Reporting by Nick Kerry; Editing by John Harvey)