Pittsburgh’s Innovation Profile Boosted by Uber’s CMU Robotics Partnership
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Move comes just as Google looks to develop a competing service.
While San Francisco-based ride-booking service Uber has run into plenty of controversial regulatory showdowns with plenty of state and municipal governments in the United States and elsewhere around the world, the local operating climate for the company in Pittsburgh is comparably quite friendly.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has supported the entry of Uber and other ride-booking taxi alternatives into the local market and defended them last year when the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission was cracking down on companies that have disrupted the traditional taxi industry.
“I will not let the Governor and the Public Utility Commission shut down innovation, the mayor said in a July statement. “While the commission may wish for Pennsylvania to cling to a Jurassic Age of transportation options, people in Pittsburgh and other communities know our state must adapt or die in the global marketplace.”
The PUC recently granted Uber a two-year experimental license to operate in most of the commonwealth, except in Philadelphia, where it its operating its UberX service despite a local ban.
But the situation on the other side of the state is much different.
On Monday, Uber announced a partnership with Carnegie Mellon University to create the Uber Advanced Technology Center on the school’s Pittsburgh campus and at the National Robotics Engineering Center, a CMU-affiliated lab in the city’s Lawrenceville neighborhood.
According to Uber’s announcement:
The partnership will provide a forum for Uber technology leaders to work closely with CMU faculty, staff, and students — both on campus and at the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) — to do research and development, primarily in the areas of mapping and vehicle safety and autonomy technology.
Although the city of Pittsburgh is not investing any of its resources into Uber’s new research footprint, Peduto is nonetheless enthusiastic with the company’s decision to invest in the city’s robotics and engineering sector, something that the mayor has previously pointed to when championing the city’s innovation economy.
“I am pleased to welcome Uber to the growing list of leading technology companies that are coming to Pittsburgh to help invent the future,” Peduto said in Uber's announcement. “This is yet another case where collaboration between the city and its universities is creating opportunities for job growth and community development.”
Uber’s Pittsburgh announcement comes amid news this week that Google is looking to step onto Uber’s turf.
As Bloomberg Businessweek reported on Monday, Google, which has previously invested in Uber through the search giant’s venture capital arm, “is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project.”