With the announcement that Argo AI has signed a $15 cooperative pact with Carnegie Mellon University to share robotic expertise at one of the world’s top learning institutions, both sides will be aiming for a more productive outcome than the blowup that engulfed Uber and CMU four years ago.
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Argo AI, which accepted a $1 billion investment from Ford Motor Co. three years ago, said it will sponsor research over a five-year period “to pursue advanced projects to help overcome hurdles to enabling self-driving vehicles to operate in a wide variety of real-world conditions, such as winter weather or construction zones.”
Shortly after Uber and CMU’s National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) announced a so-called cooperative partnership in 2015, about forty members of the university’s robotics department left to work for Uber, which established a self-driving research lab not far from campus. The abrupt defection of so many academics to private industry left the university, city politicians and economic development officials with egg on their face.
Argo AI headquarters stands in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Saturday, Aug. 18, 2018. The investment in Argo AI, a self-driving startup, is Ford’s way of trying to catch up to Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and General Motors Co. in the driverless derby. Ford took a majority stake in Argo last year and expects to deploy autonomous vehicles running its system in a money-making business by 2021. Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg
© 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP
Following an uproar over Uber’s actions, CMU subsequently accepted a $5.5 million gift from the ride-hailing company to pay for new faculty members and research. With competition fierce among scores of companies to achieve a breakthrough in self-driving technology, talent in artificial intelligence and related software fields has become more scarce and in higher demand.
Carnegie Mellon is striving to maintain its world-class reputation for robotics research and instruction, while making sure that its staff has opportunities to participate in commercial ventures. According to the agreement, five professors will teach at CMU while also working for Argo AI.
“This will be a different kind of collaboration,” said Martial Hebert, head of CMU’s Robotics Institute, referring to the defunct Uber partnership.
The latest deal with Argo AI looks less risky in terms of potential talent defection because of CMU’s longstanding relationship with the company’s two founders, Brian Salesky – now its CEO – and Peter Rander, who are well known former employees of NREC. Argo’s $15 million will be used to create an Autonomous Research Vehicle center, whose intellectual property and data will be open and available for research purposes.
Bryan Salesky, chief executive officer of Argo AI, stands for a photograph next to modified Ford Motor Co. Fusion autonomous vehicle parked in a garage at the company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. The investment in Argo AI, a self-driving startup, is Ford’s way of trying to catch up to Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and General Motors Co. in the driverless derby. Ford took a majority stake in Argo last year and expects to deploy autonomous vehicles running its system in a money-making business by 2021. Photographer: Justin Merriman/Bloomberg
© 2018 Bloomberg Finance LP
”Argo AI, Pittsburgh and the entire autonomous vehicle industry have benefited from Carnegie Mellon’s leadership. It’s an honor to support development of the next-generation of leaders and help unlock the full potential of autonomous vehicle technology,” Salesky said. “CMU and now Argo AI are two big reasons why Pittsburgh will remain the center of the universe for self-driving technology.”
Salesky’s statement with regard to Pittsburgh may be seen as a bit grandiose, in light of self-driving projects in Silicon Valley, Israel and elsewhere. He wouldn’t be wrong in identifying Pittsburgh as an important hotspot among many.
