Uber Builds AI Team in Toronto as It Fights Self-Driving Car Lawsuit at Home

Uber Technologies Inc., in the midst of legal battle with Alphabet Inc. over self-driving car technology, is building a new artificial intelligence team in Toronto to help improve its autonomous vehicle software.

The team will be part of Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, the unit that's developing much of its autonomous technology. It will be led by Raquel Urtasun, an expert in the AI fields of machine learning and computer vision at the University of Toronto. Uber is also investing $5 million over several years in the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a non-profit affiliated with the university.

The city of Toronto has seen many researchers defect to the U.S. To prevent further brain drain, it set up an urban innovation hub, called the MaRS Discovery District, to attract companies and encourage investment in Canadian startups. Uber will be putting its AI offices there.