Waabi
An autonomous driving company founded by Raquel Urtasun, former chief scientist at Uber ATG, that adopts an AI-first technical approach centered on large-scale simulation and generative world models, with the goal of replacing manual annotation and rule-writing in traditional autonomous driving development.
Timeline (last 90 days)
Companies including Nvidia, Waabi, Benchmark, Flock Safety and Recursive Intelligence took the stage on the second day of TechCrunch Disrupt 2026.
Waabi takes a simulation-first approach: instead of relying on large-scale real-world road testing to train its driving system, it builds its training and validation pipeline around a high-fidelity generative simulation environment.
Waabi is a self-driving truck company founded by Raquel Urtasun, former chief scientist at Uber ATG.
Waabi advocates developing autonomous driving technology through interpretable, simulation-verifiable methods rather than relying solely on massive amounts of road-test data.
The Real World AI stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will bring together technology leaders from Waabi, Shield AI, and General Motors to discuss how to build reliable, verifiable AI systems.
Waabi artificially injects extreme conditions through high-fidelity simulation to stress-test system boundaries in a controlled, repeatable manner, converting safety into quantifiable probabilistic metrics.
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026's AI security sessions have invited industry leaders from organizations including Anthropic, NVIDIA, AWS, and Waabi.
The core of Waabi's technical approach is using large-scale simulation and generative world models to replace the labor-intensive manual annotation and rule-writing in traditional autonomous driving.
Waabi is a self-driving company founded by Raquel Urtasun, former Chief Scientist at Uber ATG.
Waabi was founded by University of Toronto professor Raquel Urtasun and develops autonomous driving systems using generative AI technology.
All Facts (7)
Waabi is a self-driving truck company founded by Raquel Urtasun, former chief scientist at Uber ATG.
50%UnverifiedWaabi takes a simulation-first approach: instead of relying on large-scale real-world road testing to train its driving system, it builds its training and validation pipeline around a high-fidelity generative simulation environment.
50%UnverifiedWaabi advocates developing autonomous driving technology through interpretable, simulation-verifiable methods rather than relying solely on massive amounts of road-test data.
50%UnverifiedWaabi artificially injects extreme conditions through high-fidelity simulation to stress-test system boundaries in a controlled, repeatable manner, converting safety into quantifiable probabilistic metrics.
50%UnverifiedWaabi is a self-driving company founded by Raquel Urtasun, former Chief Scientist at Uber ATG.
50%UnverifiedThe core of Waabi's technical approach is using large-scale simulation and generative world models to replace the labor-intensive manual annotation and rule-writing in traditional autonomous driving.
50%UnverifiedWaabi was founded by University of Toronto professor Raquel Urtasun and develops autonomous driving systems using generative AI technology.
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