Self-driving cars require colossal investments, which Google is ready to support.
Waymo, the subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has just raised $ 2.5 billion.
Already last year, the start-up raised $ 3.25 billion.
According to investor website PitchBook, the company is valued at nearly $ 30 billion.
Waymo is a project that began in 2009, which has today become one of the leaders in autonomous cars.
The start-up has also partnered with manufacturers such as Fiat Chrysler and Jaguar.
In addition to cars, the firm has launched a robot taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona, and is experimenting with an autonomous heavy truck.
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But in this sector, the competition is tough. Due to lack of funds, the start-ups Zoox and Drive.ai had to agree to be bought out by Amazon and Apple respectively. Uber and its rival Lyft even threw in the towel, because of spending too much. While Waymo leads the way, delays create tension within society. Several leaders have left their posts, such as last April the general manager John Krafcik, a former Hyundai recruited in 2015.
Like its competitors, Waymo seeks to develop technology that is reliable enough to prevent fatal accidents. However, algorithms need to accumulate data directly while driving. It will therefore take years of necessary research and testing before producing a safe car.
"There is no greater challenge in artificial intelligence than to design and deploy fully autonomous technology on a large scale,"
say the two directors of Waymo.