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Robotaxi pioneer Waymo plans to expand to London next year, marking the companys latest step in rolling out its driverless ride service internationally. Waymo said Wednesday that it will start testing its self-driving cars on London streets in the coming weekswith a human safety driver behind the wheelas it seeks to win government approval for its services. In a blog post, Waymo said it will lay the groundwork for its London service in the coming months. The company said it will continue to engage with local and national leaders to secure the necessary permissions for our commercial ride-hailing service. Waymos self-driving taxis have been operating in the United States for years, and currently serve the cities of Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin. This year, the company made its first moves to expand internationally by teaming up with local partners in Japan for testing, though no launch date has been set for commercial service there. The company began as a secret project within Google and was then spun out from the tech giant. Waymo will have to follow new U.K. regulations on self-driving cars that pave the way for autonomous vehicles to take to the country’s roads. They require self-driving cars to have a safety level at least as high as careful and competent human drivers and meet rigorous safety checks. The company will be able to take part in a pilot program for small-scale” self-driving taxi and bus services that the government plans for spring 2026. Waymo will also have to stick to rules from Transport for London, the city’s transport authority, which oversees licensing for its famous traditional black cabs as well as other taxi operators like Uber.
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E-Commerce
U.S. quantum computing firm D-Wave Quantum has struck a deal with a company called Swiss Quantum Technology (SQT) to bring D-Waves Advantage2 quantum computer to Europe. The deal, which amounts to 10 million ($11.63 million), will see D-Waves quantum computer deployed in Italy, where it will play a role in supporting the Italians efforts toward large-scale digital transformation, D-Wave announced on Wednesday. It will be part of a joint effortcollectively called the Q-Alliance”between D-Wave and IonQ, another American quantum computing company. In its announcement on Wednesday, D-Wave said little about what SQT does, and scant information about the company is accessible online. When contacted for comment by Fast Company, a rep for D-Wave described it as “a Swiss company that has been established to focus on quantum hybrid applications and research.” Shares of Palo Alto, California-based D-Wave rose after the announcement and were up around 1.29% in early afternoon trading. The stock has had an astounding run since last year, growing more than 4,235% over the last 12 months as excitement around quantum computersseen by many experts as a transformative technologyhas hit fever pitch. “A very important day” D-Waves CEO, Alan Baratz, said during a short livestreamed announcement on Wednesday morning that it’s “a very important day for Italy, for the Q-Alliance, and for D-Wave as we are now bringing one of the worlds largest quantum computers to the region.” The announcement comes after D-Wave made waves earlier this year by announcing that it had achieved quantum supremacy, by knocking out computations that would have taken roughly 1 million years to solve on a classical computer. Accordingly, Baratz said that D-Waves Advantage2 is the only quantum computer in the world thats been able to solve an important, useful, real-world problem that could not be solved classicallyreferring to the quantum supremacy announcement, which involved D-Waves quantum computer simulating the properties of magnetic materials. This is what everybody [in the quantum industry] has been aspiring to, he said, and thats been achieved. D-Waves quantum computing technology is already being used in other parts of the world. A police department in Wales, for instance, is using it to predict and analyze police force deployments. Ford Otosan, a Turkey-based auto manufacturer representing a joint effort between Ford and Koç Holding, is using D-Wave tech as a part of its assembly process. And in Japan, a cellphone carrier is using it to improve its network performance. D-Wave announced the general availability of its Advantage2 in May of this year. News that it is bringing one to Italy may be seen as more evidence that the quantum industry is set for a breakoutdespite skepticism from some tech leaders who have contended that practical use cases are still years away.
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E-Commerce
Elon Musk‘s lawyers will urge the Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday to restore his $56 billion pay package from Tesla, as one of the biggest corporate legal battles enters its final stage nearly two years after a lower court judge rescinded the Tesla CEO’s record compensation. The outcome could have substantial consequences for the state of Delaware, its widely used corporate law, and its Court of Chancery, a once-favored venue for business disputes that has recently been accused of hostility towards powerful entrepreneurs. The January 2024 Court of Chancery ruling striking down Musk’s pay has become a rallying cry for Delaware critics. Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled that the Tesla board lacked independence from Musk when it approved the pay package in 2018 and that shareholders lacked key information when they voted overwhelmingly in favor of it. As a result, she applied a demanding legal standard and found the pay unfair to investors. The defendants, current and former Tesla directors, denied wrongdoing and said McCormick misinterpreted the facts and the law. Musk is not expected to attend. Companies switch legal homes After the Musk pay ruling, large companies, including Tesla, Dropbox, and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, switched their legal homes to Texas or Nevada, where courts are friendlier toward directors. Delaware lawmakers responded to the corporate departures, a trend known as “Dexit,” by overhauling its corporate law. If Musk loses the appeal, he will still reap tens of billions of dollars in stock from the electric vehicle company, which agreed in August to a replacement deal if his 2018 plan is not restored. The company said the replacement award was meant to retain and focus Musk, who said earlier this year he was forming a new U.S. political party, on transitioning Tesla to robotics and automated driving. Tesla is now incorporated in Texas, where it is far more difficult for a shareholder to challenge board decisions. Tesla’s board last month proposed a $1 trillion compensation plan, highlighting confidence in Musk’s ability to steer the company in a new direction, even as Tesla loses ground to Chinese rivals in key markets amid softening EV demand. The five justices on Delaware’s high court will consider the appeal of the pay ruling as well as the $345 million legal fee that McCormick ordered Tesla to pay to the attorneys for Richard Tornetta, who held just nine Tesla shares when he sued to block the pay deal. The court typically takes months to rule. Tesla estimated in 2018 that the stock options plan would be worth $56 billion if the company met operational and financial goals, which it did. Because the stock continued to appreciate, the options are currently worth closer to $120 billion, by far the largest executive compensation ever. Musk is the world’s richest person with a fortune of around $480 billion, according to Forbes. The defendants have argued that McCormick erred in finding social and business ties to Musk compromised their independence and said Tesla shareholders were informed of the economic terms of the pay deal before they approved the plan. The directors said she should have reviewed the pay package under the “business judgment” standard, which protects directors from second-guessing by courts. The directors have long argued the pay package performed as hoped – it focused the attention of Musk, a serial entrepreneur, and he transformed Tesla from a startup into one of the world’s most valuable companies. Several months after McCormick’s ruling, Tesla received shareholder approval a second time for the plan, which McCormick rejected as legally invalid. Tesla is also appealing that decision. Tom Hals, Reuters
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