Autonomous driving technology startup Minus Zero on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) and I-Hub Data to foster an autonomous driving research ecosystem in India.

Together, they aim to perform ground-breaking research on multiple verticals, including foundational models for autonomous driving, computer vision, AD simulators, synthetic data, etc.

“With India taking a strong stance in the global AI race, close collaboration between industry and academia is crucial to foster an ecosystem that incentivises researchers to pursue foundational AI research in the country,” said Gagandeep Reehal, CEO and co-founder of Minus Zero.

The alliance is aimed at strengthening the AI research ecosystem in the country by combining real-life industry problems with breakthrough academic research.

The collaboration also aims to create a large-scale, engineered dataset of Indian roads that will be instrumental in training, validation, and benchmarking AI models for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Driving (AD).

The comprehensive dataset will document the varied road infrastructure, traffic flows, and environmental settings across the country.

“This strategic alliance underscores IHub-Data’s dedication to facilitating cutting-edge research and technology development while also propelling Minus Zero towards the forefront of the automotive industry’s evolution,” said Veera Ganesha Yalla, IHub-Data CTO.

Minus Zero last year demonstrated the capabilities of its autonomous driving platform in a closed environment through a purpose-built vehicle, ‘zPod’.

Founded in 2021 by Reehal and Gursimran Kalra, Minus Zero is backed by leading investors like Chiratae Ventures and others.