Business

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

Published

1 month ago

May 2, 2026

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Uber has a long-term ambition that goes well beyond shuttling passengers: the company eventually wants to outfit its human drivers’ cars with sensors to soak up real-world data for autonomous vehicle (AV) companies — and potentially other companies training AI models on physical-world scenarios.

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.

“That is the direction we want to go eventually,” Naga said of equipping human drivers’ vehicles. “But first we need to get the understanding of the sensor kits and how they all work. There are some regulations — we have to make sure every state has [clarity on] what sensors mean, and what sharing it means.”

For now, AV Labs relies on a small, dedicated fleet of sensor-equipped cars that Uber operates itself, separate from its driver network. But the ambition is clearly much larger. Uber has millions of drivers globally, and if even a fraction of those cars could be transformed into rolling data-collection platforms, the scale of what Uber could offer the AV industry would dwarf what any individual AV company could assemble on its own.

The insight driving the program, Naga said, is that the limiting factor for AV development is no longer the underlying technology. “The bottleneck is data,” he said. “[Companies like Waymo] need to go around and collect the data, collect different scenarios. You may be able to say: in San Francisco, ‘At this school intersection, I want some data at this time of day so I can train my models.’ The problem for all these companies is access to that data, because they don’t have the capital to deploy the cars and go collect all this information.”

Becoming the data layer for the entire AV ecosystem is a pretty smart play, particularly considering Uber years ago abandoned its own ambitions to build self-driving cars (a move that co-founder Travis Kalanick has publicly lamented as a big mistake). Indeed, many industry observers have wondered if, without its own self-driving cars, Uber might one day be rendered irrelevant as AVs increasingly spring up around the globe.

The company currently has partnerships with 25 AV companies — including Wayve, which operates in London — and is building what Naga described as an “AV cloud”: a library of labeled sensor data that partner companies can query and use to train their models. Partners, which Uber plans to more aggressively invest in directly, can also use the system to run their trained models in “shadow mode” against real Uber trips, simulating how an AV would have performed without actually putting one on the road.

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“Our goal is not to make money out of this data,” Naga said. “We want to democratize it.”

Given the obvious commercial value of what Uber is building, that positioning may not last long. The company has already made equity investments in numerous AV players, and its ability to offer proprietary training data at scale could give it significant leverage over a sector that right now depends on Uber’s ride marketplace to reach customers.

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

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Elon Musk becomes world’s first trillionaire as SpaceX IPO surges on debut

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23 hours ago

June 13, 2026

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Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has attained trillionaire status after SpaceX, the rocket, AI and satellite communications company established by him, turned a soaraway success on its first trading day, surging 20 per cent to $2.1 trillion in valuation.

SpaceX’s shares closed at $161 on the Nasdaq on Friday, compared to its initial public offering (IPO) price of $135, making it the biggest-ever stock market debut.

The IPO had earlier raised $75 billion from investors and the underwriters of the transaction before the listing.

“Liftoff! First $SPCX trade complete,” Space X wrote on X (formerly Twitter), which Mr Musk also owns.

The 54-year old now has a total net worth of $1.1 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with its stake in SpaceX standing at 42 per cent or $767.1 billion as of Friday.

SpaceX debuted with a valuation of around $1.8 trillion. Its valuation at the end of Friday’s trade makes it the sixth-largest publicly traded company in the United States.

Trading under the ticker symbol “SPCX,” SpaceX began trading shortly before noon, attracting strong investor demand.

The listing places SpaceX among the world’s most valuable companies, despite the firm reporting a loss of nearly $5 billion last year and generating significantly less revenue than many technology giants with comparable valuations.

“I gave SpaceX a 10 per cent chance of succeeding at all,” Mr Musk said shortly before the company was listed.

SpaceX, since its establishment in 2002, has evolved from an experimental rocket startup into a dominant player in aerospace, satellite communications, and AI-related infrastructure.

READ ALSO: Elon Musk announces formation of American Party

Starlink, its satellite internet business, has expanded SpaceX beyond rocket manufacturing into a broader technology and connectivity platform.

Mr Musk, who now controls several companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and X, began building his wealth by co-founding Zip2 and PayPal.

After completing the acquisition of X in October 2022 in a deal worth $44 billion, Mr Musk introduced monetisation features on the platform, which contributed to the growth of his business empire.

After selling Zip2 and later PayPal, he reinvested much of his earnings into Tesla, SpaceX, and other ventures.

Mr Musk’s wealth is now nearly equivalent to the entire economic output of Switzerland or Poland.

Business

Nigeria’s Pension Assets Top ₦32tn as Kenyan Regulator Understudies Reforms

Published

1 day ago

June 13, 2026

Preport

BY NKECHI NAECHE-ESEZOBOR—The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has received a four-member delegation from Kenya’s Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) for a four-day technical study visit in Abuja, solidifying Nigeria’s position as a leading reference point for pension reform and regulatory innovation across the African continent.

The Kenyan delegation, led by John Keah, Director of Market Conduct and Industry Development at the RBA, is visiting Nigeria from June 8 to 11, 2026, to understudy PenCom’s regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

Keah noted that the engagement highlights the critical role of cross-border learning among African regulators aiming to optimize retirement systems and improve pension outcomes for citizens. He added that structural similarities between the two nations’ pension landscapes make Nigeria’s journey highly relevant to Kenya’s ongoing domestic reforms.

The RBA delegation is focusing its study on PenCom’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives, its risk-based supervision framework, and its strategies for expanding pension coverage to both the informal sector and the diaspora.

Keah particularly lauded the governance safeguards within Nigeria’s pension system and described the Diaspora Pension Arrangement as an innovative milestone capable of reducing old-age poverty and enhancing long-term retirement security.

Welcoming the delegation, the Director General of PenCom, Ms. Omolola Oloworaran, reiterated Nigeria’s dedication to regional collaboration and knowledge exchange. Represented by the Director of the Surveillance Department, Abdulrahaman Muhammad Saleem, the Director General revealed that pension assets under management in Nigeria have grown to over ₦32 trillion, representing approximately 10.4 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

This growth, she noted, stems from continuous regulatory reforms, heightened governance standards, and rigorous supervisory mechanisms established since the inception of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in 2004.

Ms. Oloworaran also highlighted the Federal Government’s recent settlement of outstanding accrued pension rights liabilities as a historic turning point for the CPS.

The intervention, executed through the issuance of a Federal Government bond, effectively resolved a prolonged funding backlog that had previously delayed retirement benefits for public sector employees within Treasury-Funded Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).

Under the new framework, accrued rights are transferred directly into retirees’ Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs), granting immediate access to investment returns and eliminating lengthy waiting periods.

The technical visit, anchored on the theme “Risk-Based Supervision and ESG Integration in Pension Funds,” includes interactive departmental presentations, study tours to selected Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), and collaborative sessions on emerging risks.

Both regulatory bodies expect the engagement to deepen bilateral cooperation and foster resilient, inclusive, and sustainable pension architectures across East and West Africa.

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