In autonomous and self-driving vehicle news are Waymo, Google, Uber, Zipline, Pony.ai, Verne, Momenta, XHEART, BlackBerry QNX, Baidu, TIER IV and Renesas. In this Article Waymo Named Official Autonomous Ride-Hailing Partner of Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium Waymo Unveils Custom 5nm Sensor-Processing ASIC in Sixth-Generation Ojai Robotaxi Fleet Waymo has disclosed its first proprietary silicon, an application-specific integrated circuit fabricated on TSMC’s 5nm process node delivering over 1,000 TOPS. Deployed in its sixth-generation Ojai robotaxi platform, the custom ASIC operates as an edge pre-processor dedicated to real-time temporal denoising and machine learning inference across 13 camera feeds, radar, and LiDAR streams before routing data to core compute units. The custom silicon functions additively within a heterogeneous hardware suite supported by Tier-1 suppliers including Nvidia, AMD, Micron, and Samsung. The sixth-generation architecture relies on dual liquid-cooled, fail-operational compute modules designed for extreme vibration and thermal shock, reinforcing a redundant multi-sensor edge fusion model over vision-only autonomous systems. While hardware costs have dropped to an estimated $20,000 to $25,000 per vehicle across its 4,000-vehicle commercial deployment, reliance on Geely-manufactured Zeekr base vehicles from Ningbo, China, maintains trade and regulatory exposure as scaling expands into new metropolitan operating domains. Waymo Integrates Google Gemini Assistant and Tri-Screen UI into Ojai Robotaxi Platform Waymo has unveiled an overhauled in-cabin architecture for its purpose-built Ojai autonomous vehicle (AV), introducing an integrated Google Gemini conversational AI assistant alongside a redesigned user interface. Operating on a separate compute domain isolated from the core Level 4 Waymo Driver autonomous driving system (ADS), the Gemini assistant processes natural language voice commands for cabin climate adjustments, local point-of-interest (POI) queries, and safe passenger-directed pullover requests without accessing real-time motion control or routing pipelines. The updated digital cockpit deploys a choreographed tri-screen display system that dynamically configures content based on passenger