AWS Joins Autoware Foundation and Broadens Engagement with Open Source Autonomous Driving Development

Highlights

• The world’s leading open-source autonomous driving (AD) software provider and AWS commit to working together to showcase cloud-native development best practices that can support the Software Defined Vehicle paradigm that both organizations value.
• Learnings from this engagement between the two organizations will help foster open standards and open source in automotive software, paving the way for value-added differentiation for autonomous applications.
• With a deep engagement in the Autoware Foundation’s Open AD Kit initiative, AWS will be instrumental in helping automotive customers start developing AD solutions by using reference architectures and implementations.

The Autoware Foundation (AWF) is excited to announce that Amazon Web Services (AWS) has joined the foundation. . Today, the two organizations are committing to work more closely to bring autonomous driving software development best practices to help support the broader automotive industry.

“As the world’s leading open-source software project for autonomous driving, the Autoware project poses a unique opportunity to offer a platform for developing real-world autonomous applications using modern software development methodologies and techniques, including cloud-native paradigms and streamlined software delivery in a collaborative environment built on open standards,” said Shinpei Kato, Chairman of the Autoware Foundation.

The Autoware Foundation brings together more than 70 industry members and more than 20 universities and research institutions around the globe to collaboratively develop autonomous driving solutions for a wide variety of use cases, targeting real-world deployments.

To help democratize autonomous driving software development for the industry and research, AWS and the Autoware Foundation are working together to provide demos and hands-on sessions to educate and empower industry professionals and researchers. For instance, the Autoware Foundation’s Centers of Excellence initiative that brings together universities and research institutions in three continents to develop Autoware-based solutions, leveraging state-of-the-art research at academia to bring the deep technological insights and know-how back into the Autoware project for the entire industry to capitalize. AWS will support the Autoware Foundation to help enable Autoware Centers of Excellence to nurture young talent to be proficient with the latest software innovations by providing cloud credits and a t, in addition to easily accessible resources and education through hands-on sessions and hackathons.  The resulting projects can then be translated into industrial innovations, large-scale AI/ML models, and simulations, and ultimately help the entire automotive industry to develop autonomous driving solutions at scale.  Collectively, this approach will speed up time-to-market, helping automakers deliver on the prospect of the Software Defined Vehicle.

“AWS is committed to supporting open source projects and foundations that help scale automotive innovation by making the technology accessible to every organization,” said Wendy Bauer, Vice President and General Manager of Automotive and Manufacturing at AWS. “Autoware’s extensive work in this space combined with AWS’s broad selection of purpose-built tools will help empower the next generation of developers to truly impact change in their industry.”

About The Autoware Foundation

The Autoware Foundation is a non-profit organization that hosts the Autoware project, the world’s leading open source software project for autonomous driving. The Autoware project is built on Robot Operating System (ROS), and through using open source lowers the entry barrier to autonomous driving technology and enables commercial deployment of autonomous driving in a broad range of vehicles and applications.

Autoware democratizes autonomous driving technology through open source development and is committed to creating synergies among the world’s leading technology companies, academic/non-profit organizations and individual contributors.

For press inquiries: auto@autoware.org