Oxbotica teams up with Google Cloud to add scale to autonomous vehicle platform

Autonomous vehicle software developer Oxbotica has enlisted Google Cloud to accelerate the global take-up of its self-driving vehicle technology platform.

Oxbotica said it plans to use the Google Cloud Platform infrastructure, including its compute, storage and networking offerings, to host the platform, which is geared towards supporting industrial use cases for autonomous vehicles.

For example, its technology is used to run passenger shuttles operating on fixed routes in cities where there are driver shortages.

“With Google Cloud, Oxbotica’s customers will be able to easily and quickly scale from single prototype vehicles to full fleets. In addition, the collaboration will enable Oxbotica to explore the larger impact of autonomous vehicles on congestion, public transit, and more,” the two companies said, in a statement.  

Oxbotica also plans to tap into Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics capabilities to test, validate and verify its self-driving technology.

“Alongside the core development of its self-driving platform, Oxbotica will use Google Cloud to generate digital twins in Oxbotica’s MetaDriver, an AI-powered metaverse, that connects and controls virtual and physical fleets together, sending real-time analytics on performance,” the statement continued.

“Oxbotica’s MetaDriver automatically generates a vast bank of virtual scenarios to help ensure the safety of autonomous vehicles. Google Cloud will provide the data and machine learning tools to enable MetaDriver to apply Oxbotica’s proprietary generative AI tools to the extensive bank of virtual scenarios including unusual edge cases that are often economically, environmentally or physically impractical to discover in conventional testing.”

Gavin Jackson, CEO of Oxbotica, said the company is looking forward to drawing on Google Cloud’s expertise to accelerate the adoption of its autonomous driving software.

“Google Cloud is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and using its cutting-edge technology and AI-powered tools will strengthen our proposition for our customers,” he added.

News of the technology tie-up between the two companies comes hot on the heels of the announcement earlier this month that autonomous vehicle provider Goggo Network would be rolling out Oxbotica’s software to its delivery operations.

Specifically, the Goggo Network and Oxbotica partnership is geared towards addressing the impact high fuel costs and driver shortages are having on businesses on delivery businesses, particularly as demand for online shopping services continues to soar.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said Google and Oxbotica will also look to address similar pain points in a number of other industries too.

“ The combination of Oxbotica's leading technology and our reliable infrastructure and AI and data-enabled cloud platform has the potential to accelerate autonomous mobility in a variety of industrial use cases,” Kurian said.

“From last mile logistics to public transportation, we look forward to working together to positively impact the lives of end users.”