Google currently tests it autonomous vehicles in Mountain View, CA., Austin, TX. and Kirkland, WA.
Will Massachusetts be next?
Masslive.com is reporting that some of the United States' biggest auto and technology companies are putting significant money into research and development of self-driving cars in the state, including a $1 billion research initiative sparked by an ex-professor of the Olin College of Engineering in the Needham section of Massachusetts.
"What's happening in self-driving cars right now, and the speed and amount of money that's going into it and the importance of it, is sort of the equivalent of what was happening in the 1960s with the race to the moon," Roger Matus, VP of products and markets of the Boston-based company Neurala, told Masslive.com.
That particular company is in the midst of developing auto software to enable vehicles to anticipate potential road hazards.
"The interest of industry right now is trying to encourage Massachusetts as a place where a lot of this development is taking place," Matus added.
While much of the current self-driving activity swirls around Silicon Valley, Massachusetts could be one of the next prominent locations for the growth of autonomous-vehicle technology, considering Toyota's recent five-year, $1 billion investment in artificial intelligence and robotics toward an autonomous car, splitting the effort between Cambridge, Mass. and Palo Alto, CA. That and Gil Pratt, the CEO of the Toyota Research Institute, is a former Olin College professor.
And Toyota's activity within the state is just the tip of the iceberg for what Massachusetts could mean towards the growth of the autonomous vehicle technology, overall. UMass Amherst professors Shlomo Zilberstein and Donald Fisher are even collaborating on an autonomous project, which is being funded by General Motors and the National Science Foundation, according to Masslive, focusing on transitioning self-driving systems to humans while driving in an autonomous car.
"There is a lot going on. There is a lot of progress, and there is a tremendous amount of resources dedicated to research in this area right now," Zilberstein told the website. "No car company wants to be caught unprepared for this."
Taking the research and development of autonomous vehicles in the state further, it will be intriguing to see if Mass could become a prominent testing location on the East Coast for tech companies and automakers in the self-driving space to set up shop in.
