Oxford AI company Latent Logic acquired by Google’s Waymo

Latent Energy’s founders, academics Shimon Whiteson and João Messias plus other members of the team will join Waymo to continue the developments but remain in Oxford. Whiteson will continue his role as professor of computer science at the university.

Whiteson said: “By joining Waymo, we are taking a big leap towards realizing our ambition of safe, self-driving vehicles. In just two years, we have made significant progress in using imitation learning to simulate real human behaviours on the road.

“I’m excited by what we can now achieve in combining this expertise with the talent, resources and progress Waymo have already made in self-driving technology.

“We’re proud to have started in Oxford and to now be part of Waymo’s first European engineering hub in the UK, surrounded by such amazing talent and entrepreneurship in machine learning, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.”

About the Author

Antony David

A chemistry graduate, Antony spent most of his career using and then making equipment for the music and broadcast industries. He was managing director of Oxford-based electronics and software company, Solid State Logic.