电动汽车制造商 Rivian 已收购英国初创公司 Third Dimension，该公司由游戏和自动驾驶行业的资深人士于 2024 年创立，利用 AI 将图像和视频转化为逼真的 3D 世界。
EV maker Rivian has acquired Third Dimension, a U.K. startup founded by veterans of the gaming and autonomous vehicle industries that uses AI to turn images and videos into lifelike 3D worlds.
Rivian 并非进军游戏领域，而是希望利用 Third Dimension 的技术将现实世界的数据转化为 3D 世界，以加速其高级驾驶辅助功能的开发，以及为其计划供应给 Uber 的 Robotaxi（自动驾驶出租车）开发自动驾驶系统。
Rivian isn’t getting into gaming, but it does want to leverage Third Dimension’s technology to turn real-world data into 3D worlds that can accelerate the development of its advanced driver-assistance features and the self-driving system for the robotaxis it plans to supply to Uber.
交易条款未予披露。Third Dimension 的 15 人团队（大部分位于英国）将并入由 James Philbin 领导的 Rivian 自动驾驶与 AI 团队。Philbin 在独家采访中表示，此次收购也为 Rivian 提供了在伦敦扩大 AI 中心的机会。
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The 15-person team at Third Dimension, most of whom are based in the U.K., will be absorbed into Rivian’s autonomy and AI team led by James Philbin. The acquisition also gives Rivian an opportunity to expand its AI hub in London, Philbin said in an exclusive interview.
Third Dimension 由 CEO Tolga Kart 和 Piotr Sokólski 于 2024 年创立，曾从包括 Abstract Ventures、MVP、Soma Capital 和 Solari Capital 在内的风险投资公司筹集了 700 万美元种子资金。虽然该公司技术最初是为加速视频游戏开发而构建的，但创始人看到了其他潜在应用，包括国防和自动驾驶汽车。
Third Dimension, which was founded by CEO Tolga Kart and Piotr Sokólski in 2024, raised $7 million in seed funding from venture capital firms, including Abstract Ventures, MVP, Soma Capital, and Solari Capital. While the company’s technology was built to speed up video game development, the founders saw other potential applications, including defense and autonomous vehicles.
如今，在 Rivian 旗下，他们将专注于自动驾驶。目前，Rivian 提供“Universal Hands-Free”（通用免手）驾驶软件，允许驾驶员在高速公路上双手离开方向盘，但仍需注视路况。公司计划在今年年底前推出一个版本，该版本能在不接触方向盘的情况下处理市区道路和高速公路的全程驾驶，尽管驾驶员仍需监督并随时准备接管。
Now, under Rivian, they’ll be focused on automated driving. Today, Rivian offers “Universal Hands-Free” driving software that lets drivers take their hands off the wheel on highways, while still watching the road. The company plans to, by the end of the year, release a version of the software that can handle the entire drive through surface streets and highways without touching the wheel, although the driver will still have to supervise and be ready to take over.
Rivian 还在致力于实现完全自动驾驶，并将在 2028 年通过 Uber 应用程序部署搭载该技术的 R2 SUV Robotaxi 版本。
Rivian is also working toward full autonomy, which it will deploy in the robotaxi versions of its R2 SUV that will be available on the Uber app in 2028.
“团队很高兴能够专注于解决一个问题，”Kart 在接受 TechCrunch 采访时表示。“我认为作为一家小公司，必须服务许多、许多不同的主子非常困难，所以我们非常高兴能来解决一个规模如此之大的问题，我们的技术能真正发挥作用。”模拟是自动驾驶开发者的关键工具，他们用它来训练和验证自动驾驶系统。历史上，这些模拟器是基于渲染或视频游戏引擎构建的，且往往依赖合成数据。
“The team is excited to be able to focus on one problem,” Kart told TechCrunch in the interview. “I think as a small company, having to serve many, many different masters is very hard, and so we’re very excited to come work on a problem that has such an amount of scale, where our technology makes a true difference.”Simulation is a critical tool for autonomous vehicle developers, who use it to train and validate self-driving systems. Historically, these simulators were built on rendering or video game engines and often relied on synthetic data.
Kart 表示，这些虚拟环境可能看起来像现实世界，但两者之间仍存在差距。通常的变通方法是向模拟器输入越来越大量的数据，希望缩小这一质量差距。
These virtual environments might look like the real world, but a gap between the two remains, Kart said. The workaround typically requires feeding the simulators ever-larger amounts of data in hopes of closing that quality gap.
Third Dimension 的技术利用 AI 匹配物理世界，结合 Rivian 的海量数据，有望打造出一个有价值的模拟器。
Third Dimension’s technology uses AI to match the physical world, which when combined with Rivian’s reams of data could turn into a valuable simulator.
“对我们来说，关键在于获取真实场景，并使其可模拟，”Philbin 表示。“这些不是合成的、视频游戏风格的场景，它们是现实世界中真实发生的事情，但现在我们多了一个额外的调节旋钮，能够移动摄像机位置、调整其他交通参与者，甚至拥有不同的光照或天气条件。所以这对我们来说是一个非常强大的工具。”
“For us, it’s about taking real scenarios, but making them simulatable,” Philbin said. “These are not synthetic kind of video game styles, they’re real things that happen in the world, but now we get that extra dial of being able to move the cameras around, shift other agents, have maybe different lighting or weather conditions. So it’s a really powerful tool for us.”
Philbin 表示，这是公司明知想要的技术，并且实际上“对许多不同的供应商进行了相当广泛的评估”。任何开发自动驾驶技术的公司都需要数据——而且需要大量数据。但质量也很重要。从摄像头和其他传感器收集的真实世界数据尤其宝贵。
It’s technology that Philbin said the company knew it wanted and had actually “done a pretty extensive kind of evaluation of a lot of different providers.”Any company developing automated driving technology needs data — and a lot of it. But the quality matters too. Real-world data collected from cameras and other sensors is especially valuable.
Rivian 从目前在路上行驶的数万辆 R1T 皮卡、R1S SUV、送货货车和 R2 SUV 收集驾驶数据 —— 实际上是指任何车主已启用外部摄像头共享功能的车辆。Rivian 利用这些经过聚合和匿名化处理的数据来构建驾驶训练模型。据 Philbin 介绍，Rivian 每天从其客户车队获得超过 40 万个上传的数据序列。
Rivian collects driving data from tens of thousands of R1S pickup trucks, R1S SUVs, delivery vans, and R2 SUVs on the road today — essentially any vehicle whose owner has enabled external camera sharing. Rivian uses that data, which is aggregated and anonymized, to build training models for driving. According to Philbin, Rivian gets more than 400,000 sequences uploaded from its customer fleets per day.
Philbin 表示，Third Dimension 的技术将使 Rivian 能够模拟复杂的驾驶条件，而无需等待罕见的现实边缘案例发生。
Third Dimension’s tech will allow Rivian to simulate complex driving conditions without having to wait for rare real-world edge cases to occur, Philbin said.
“特别是当你考虑到验证时，对吧？这才是真正关键的环节，你在问：‘系统可以发布了吗？’”Philbin 说。“在那里，你真的想要很好地了解这种从仿真到现实的差距，因为要真正做到心中有数，你必须确信答案是肯定的。否则，你衡量的就不是它在现实世界中实际表现的代表性指标了。”
“Especially when you think about validation, right? So that’s really the piece where you’re saying, ‘is the system good to ship?'”Philbin said. “And there, you really want to have a good sense of this sim-to-real gap, because to to do that kind of hand on heart, you really need to trust that answer is in the positive. Otherwise, you’re measuring something that’s not representative of how it will actually perform in the real world.”