SoftBank-backed Ola to hire 150 engineers for its Silicon Valley technology centre

The research centre is its first incursion into the US and will focus on research into areas from electric cars to autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence.

Ola taxi in New Delhi | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

Bangalore: Indian ride-hailing startup Ola will hire more than 150 engineers for a technology center it plans to establish in Silicon Valley, setting up shop in the backyard of arch-rival Uber Technologies Inc.

The proposed center will focus on research into areas from electric cars to autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence, the company said Thursday. Ola, which is backed by SoftBank Group Corp., will look to hire talent in fields such as machine learning and data sciences.

The research center is its first incursion into the U.S., and Ola plans to hire “world-class talent who will collaborate closely with global teams,” it said. Besides dominating ride-hailing in its home market, Ola has expanded to Australia, New Zealand and the U.K. recently.

Ola, founded in 2011 by engineers Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, operates in 150 cities — more than 100 of them in India alone — with over 1.5 million drivers, serving a billion rides annually.