Pittsburgh self-driving car company Argo AI funding $15M Carnegie Mellon research center

Carnegie Mellon University is teaming with a Pittsburgh self-driving vehicle company to create a research center geared toward handling challenging road conditions, including changing weather patterns and construction zones.

Argo AI, headquartered in the city’s Strip District, is investing $15 million over five years to establish and fund the Carnegie Mellon University Argo AI Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research.

“This investment allows our researchers to continue to lead at the nexus of technology and society, and to solve society’s most pressing problems,” CMU President Farnam Jahanian said. “Together, Argo AI and CMU will accelerate critical research in autonomous vehicles while building on the momentum of CMU’s culture of innovation.”

CMU has been developing autonomous driving technology for more than three decades. Argo AI was founded in 2016 by CMU alumni and former CMU National Robotics Engineering Center staff members.

Deva Ramanan, an associate professor at CMU’s Robotics Institute, will serve as the research center’s principal investigator. Projects will involve other CMU faculty members and students. Researchers will have access to fleet-scale data sets, vehicles and large-scale infrastructure, information that’s not readily available but critical for advancing self-driving technologies.

”Argo AI, Pittsburgh and the entire autonomous vehicle industry have benefited from Carnegie Mellon’s leadership,” said Bryan Salesky, CEO and co-founder of Argo AI. “It’s an honor to support development of the next-generation of leaders and help unlock the full potential of autonomous vehicle technology.”