British autonomous vehicle firm Wayve has announced that it is hiring staff who would be responsible for “supervising and directing a team of drivers and safety operators, and overseasing on-road experimentation and development” based out of Mountain View in the San Francisco Bay Area. The London-based driverless vehicle oioneers are planning to put cars on the streets of San Francisco, challenging US giants including Elon Musk’s Tesla and Google’s Waymo in their own backyard.

In May, Wayve announced the UK’s biggest ever investment in an AI business, raising over $1bn from investors including SoftBank, Microsoft and chipmaker Nvidia. Wayve, whose other backers include Sir Richard Branson, said it would use the funding to expand internationally, says The Daily Telegraph.

Last year, the company lobbied for ministers to pass the Automated Vehicles Bill, which should pave the way for bringing more advanced self-driving car technology to Britain without the need for a human.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed the investment as a “testament to our leadership in this industry”.

Wayve, led by chief executive Alex Kendall, has already trialled its technology on UK roads, undertaking test drives in modified Jaguar i-Pace electric cars with a safety driver, using AI to guide the vehicles. It cannot currently operate its cars without a safety driver in the UK.