tech

May 3, 2026

Uber wants to turn its millions of drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

Praveen Neppalli Naga, Uber's chief technology officer, revealed the plan in an interview at TechCrunch's StrictlyVC event in San Francisco on Thursday night, describing it as a natural extension of a nascent program the company announced in late January called AV Labs.

Uber wants to turn its millions of drivers into a sensor grid for self-driving companies

TL;DR

  • Uber plans to outfit human drivers' cars with sensors to collect real-world data for AV companies and AI training.
  • This initiative is an extension of Uber's nascent AV Labs program, which currently uses a dedicated fleet of sensor-equipped cars.
  • The company sees data collection as the primary bottleneck for AV development, not underlying technology.
  • Uber aims to create an "AV cloud" to provide labeled sensor data to partner companies for model training and simulation.
  • Uber has existing partnerships with 25 AV companies and is making equity investments in the sector.
  • The goal is to democratize data access for AV development, though commercial value is evident.

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