AI Transforming the Transportation Industry: Waabi Set to Launch Autonomous Trucks in the Market

Jakarta, INTI – Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly transforming the transportation industry, particularly in the development of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology. Waabi, a Toronto-based startup, is leveraging generative AI to deliver autonomous vehicles at scale, starting with the long-haul trucking sector.

At the GTC event in March, Waabi announced that it will use the NVIDIA DRIVE Thor centralized car computer to bring a safe, generative AI-powered autonomous trucking solution — the Waabi Driver — to market. As the company plans the launch of fully driverless operations next year, Waabi is invigorating the industry with a cost-efficient self-driving solution that can safely handle new scenarios on the road and ultimately scale commercially.

Waabi is developing this system using NVIDIA DRIVE OS, the company's operating system for AI-defined autonomous vehicles. This innovative startup has pioneered an approach that combines two generative AI systems: a "teacher" called Waabi World, an advanced simulator that trains and validates a "student" called Waabi Driver, a single, end-to-end AI system capable of human-like reasoning and fully interpretable.

When paired together, these systems reduce the need for extensive on-road testing and enable a safer, more efficient solution that is highly performant and scalable.

"We are excited to have a deep collaboration with NVIDIA to bring generative AI to the edge, on our vehicles, at scale," said Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi.

Generative AI accelerates AV development by "providing an end-to-end system where, instead of requiring hundreds of engineers to develop a system by hand, it provides the ability to learn foundation models that can run unsupervised by observing and acting on the world," Urtasun added.

Waabi's collaboration with NVIDIA is one of a series of milestones, including the company's $200 million Series B round with participation from NVIDIA, its work with logistics company Uber Freight, the launch of its first commercial autonomous trucking routes in the U.S., and the opening of a trucking terminal near Dallas to serve as the center of the company's operations in the Lone Star State.

"What we're building for autonomous vehicles — combining generative AI-powered simulation with a foundation AI model purpose-built for acting in the physical world — will enable faster, safer, and more scalable deployment of this transformative technology around the world," Urtasun noted on the company's website.

As a significant step in this industry's transformative journey, the Indonesian government is also adopting AI technology and innovation to support economic growth and global competitiveness. Ongoing structural reforms have shown positive results, as reflected in the improvement of Indonesia's Product Market Regulation (PMR) Index from 2.79 in 2021 to 2.2 in 2024 (on a scale of 0-6, where 0 indicates more competition-friendly regulation).

These reforms have successfully promoted open competition in the rail sector, reduced barriers to foreign investment and international trade, and simplified risk-based business licensing through the Online Single Submission Risk-Based Approach (OSS RBA) system.

Indonesia will continue these reforms using OECD accession as a benchmark for further improvements. This commitment will support healthy business competition and sustainable economic growth, strengthening Indonesia's position globally and bolstering its ongoing OECD membership efforts.

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