May Mobility, Inc., the United States-based autonomous vehicle (AV) technology company, will expand its AV Technology into Southeast Asia with Grab Holdings investment.
May Mobility said in a statement on Thursday that the firm and Grab embarked on their multi-year partnership with plans to launch autonomous vehicle services in Southeast Asia.
This partnership includes an investment by Grab into May Mobility, backing the AV company as it expands its commercial reach in the global autonomous ride-hail market beyond the U.S. and Japan.
Grab and May Mobility will partner to integrate the latter’s autonomous driving technology into Grab’s core ecosystem, including its fleet management, vehicle matching and routing systems.
The partnership will combine May Mobility’s operational best practices and Grab’s local expertise to facilitate the safe and reliable implementation of AVs into Southeast Asia, tailored to the unique needs of local infrastructure.
Grab will be able to learn from May Mobility’s deployments in places like the U.S. as it ramps up its in-house capabilities.
Grab will also work with May Mobility to identify training, upskilling and transition opportunities for Grab driver-partners interested in AV-related roles.
“We believe AVs have an important role to play in the future of mobility in Southeast Asia, complementing our driver network as well as public transport systems,
“Grab is intent on taking an active role in facilitating the introduction of AVs with a safety-first approach, and in a way that benefits the wider community,” said Dominic Ong, General Manager of Autonomous at Grab.
“We see our partnership with May Mobility as a powerful synergy of hyperlocal expertise and global capabilities,
“We are excited to learn from them and work with them to adapt their technology to Southeast Asia’s needs,” he added.
As part of the partnership, May Mobility plans to leverage Grab’s proprietary mapping technology, GrabMaps, to study Southeast Asia road infrastructure.
Map technology and location-based data solutions are foundational to an autonomous vehicle’s ability to safely and precisely navigate the world.
The GrabMaps collaboration will help speed up the deployment of May Mobility’s AVs and drive more efficient operations.
GrabMaps was developed through Grab’s operations throughout the densely populated cities of Southeast Asia, using high-volume data collection and artificial intelligence (AI)-based processing to deliver maps and location-based solutions with hyperlocal accuracy and coverage.
Constant, real-time feedback to GrabMaps keeps them up to date with changing conditions, such as traffic build-ups and road closures, features that can improve the May Mobility AV rider experience.
Meanwhile, May Mobility’s Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) driving technology uses AI reasoning models to analyze thousands of potential scenarios every second and then selects the optimal maneuver in any given situation, even “edge cases”.
This approach allows May Mobility’s vehicles to adapt quickly to the unexpected, without relying exclusively on vast amounts of pre-collected, geographically specific data.
With MPDM’s adaptability, May Mobility’s AVs can rapidly adjust to new international requirements—like Southeast Asian traffic conditions and left-hand driving—without the need for extensive retraining.
The integration of Grab’s mapping technology with May Mobility’s patented autonomous driving system will enable faster localization and expansion into new markets.
“Grab is not only a leading mobility and technology player, but also an innovator in AV adoption across Southeast Asia,” said Dr. Edwin Olson, CEO and founder of May Mobility. “Their belief in our technology, along with our shared urgency to bring autonomous vehicles to people around the world, will power May’s next stage of growth.”
This strategic agreement is May Mobility’s third ride-hail partnership, and comes alongside its recent launch on the Lyft network in Atlanta and its upcoming launch on the Uber platform.
May Mobility’s partner-driven approach to commercialization focuses its resources on AV technology, while relying on leading ecosystem players like Grab to provide other parts of the value chain.
Grab and May Mobility are actively planning their first deployment together, as well as evaluating other areas of technical collaboration.
The companies also plan to explore May Mobility leveraging Grab’s mapping technology for future endeavors beyond Southeast Asia, helping the AV company to efficiently scale its operations more quickly across the globe.