Feb 4 (Reuters) - Self-driving technology company Waabi

said on Tuesday it has partnered with truckmaker Volvo's

driverless systems unit to develop and deploy big

rigs that drive themselves.

Fleets and truck manufacturers have been looking towards

self-driving vehicle technologies to reduce costs and increase

the time a truck can be on the road amid a driver shortage.

Waabi, which is backed by Nvidia ( NVDA ) and Uber ( UBER ),

and Volvo Autonomous Solutions will integrate the startup's

virtual driver system, sensors and computers into the Volvo VNL

Autonomous truck that will be made at the Swedish giant's New

River Valley factory in Dublin, Virginia.

"The technology we are building is technology that can be

actually used for many verticals, trucking being one. But you

will see Waabi in the future doing robotaxis, humanoid robots,

et cetera," Waabi's founder and CEO Raquel Urtasun told Reuters.

The startup uses a digital simulator system called Waabi

World for most of its training, testing and validation, enabling

the company to launch commercial pilots in Texas, with a human

driver, within four years through a partnership with Uber

Freight.

In contrast, Tesla uses a vision-only approach and

imitation learning for its Full Self-Driving advanced driver

assistance system, which learns from humans driving on the road

and requires the analysis of millions of real-world driving

situations.

Waabi said its deal with Volvo was not exclusive and is

looking to integrate its technology with trucks made by other

manufacturers.

"We selected trucking as the first use case because, you

know, the market is really ripe for this solution," Urtasun

said.

Volvo Group's venture capital arm became a strategic

investor in Waabi in 2023 and also participated in the startup's

$200 million Series B fundraising round last year. Waabi counts

Khosla Ventures and Porsche Automobil Holding as

investors.