LONDON — Above and British AI startup Wayve announced a partnership on Thursday that will see the two companies work together on autonomous driving technology.

As part of the deal, Uber is also investing an undisclosed amount in Wayve for a minority stake, the companies said in a statement. The investment is an extension of Wayve’s $1 billion Series C funding round announced earlier this year, which was led by the Japanese technology investor SoftBank.

US chip manufacturer NVIDIA and software giant Microsoft also invested in Wayve’s Series C.

“Wayve is developing a ‘general purpose’ driving AI that can enable all levels of driving automation in any vehicle type, anywhere in the world,” said Alex Kendall, Wayve co-founder and CEO, in the statement.

He said that Wayve, together with Uber, “looks forward to working with automotive original equipment manufacturers to bring autonomous driving technologies to consumers faster.”

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, added that the two companies “share a vision to reinvent mobility for the better.”

“Wayve’s advanced embodied AI approach shows great promise as we work toward a world where modern vehicles are shared, electric and autonomous,” said Khosrowshahi.

Uber will integrate Wayve’s AV2.0 technology – an algorithm-based product that enables vehicles to drive autonomously using data from the physical environment – into consumer vehicles “to enable a range of automated driving features,” the statement said.

Wayve’s AV2.0 product is an end-to-end AI solution that enables automakers to equip existing vehicles with Level 2+ advanced driver assistance and Level 3 and 4 automated driving features.

The different levels of vehicle autonomy are defined by SAE International, a global standards body for the mobility technology industry.

Uber plans to introduce self-driving vehicles equipped with Wayve’s technology on its app in the future, the companies said.

Uber previously had its own self-driving car division, but sold it to Aurora Technologies, an Amazon-backed self-driving car company, in 2020. As part of that deal, Uber announced it would invest $400 million in Aurora.

The ridesharing giant last week announced a similar collaboration with Cruise, a General Motors-backed autonomous driving startup, to offer driverless rides on its ridesharing network.

Above has also offered rides in vehicles from Waymo, Google’s autonomous driving spin-off, as part of a commercial cooperation. In 2019, Waymo announced a similar partnership with Lyft, an Uber competitor.