Uber setting up Canadian driverless-car lab headed by Toronto AI expert
TORONTO — Uber has hailed a prominent artificial-intelligence academic to lead a driverless-car project in Toronto — the ride-hailing company’s first such research hub outside the United States, its CEO announced Monday.
In a blog post, Travis Kalanick said he was proud to have Raquel Urtasun, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, on board. He described her as “one of the world’s leading researchers” in the fields of machine perception and artificial intelligence.
“Raquel will remain in Toronto to lead a new branch of our advanced technologies group — our first outside the U.S.,” Kalanick said in his blog. “Raquel’s work focuses on developing the software that allows self-driving cars to ‘see:’ recognizing objects so they can navigate the world smoothly and safely.”
In an interview from San Francisco, Urtasun told The Canadian Press discussions with Uber began a few months ago. The lab has now begun operation with her and eight of her students with dozens of people still to be hired in the “near future” from what Kalanick described as the region’s “impressive” talent pool.