Avride

Main article: Autopilot (self-driving car)

History

2022

Transfer of drone development from Russia to Israel

Yandex is transferring the development of drones from Russia to Israel. This became known on August 11, 2022.

According to Kommersant, Yandex will transfer to Israel the development of technologies for the development of unmanned taxis and delivery robots. The company has already begun transferring the work of its services to the cloud infrastructure of foreign providers. In particular, experts plan to replace the internal task manager Startrack with YouTrack or Jira, and transfer the project system code from the internal repository of Yandex to GitHub.

Yandex is transferring the development of drones from Russia to Israel

{{quote "In some foreign markets, we really use external cloud services, since in a number of countries the legislation requires local data to be stored on our territory. Now we are looking at new geographies, for example, Serbia, - reported in Yandex. }} The interlocutor of the newspaper in the relevant division of the company said that by August 11, 2022, several potential names of the new structure are being discussed, including roovvy.ai, avride.ai and avnear.ai. According to the who is service, the last two domains were occupied in late June and late July, the domain owner hid himself with privacy settings.

Yandex assured that the source code and technologies of unmanned vehicles will remain in Russia.

The interlocutor of the newspaper in one of the relevant ministries said that after the start of a special operation in Ukraine and the introduction of large-scale sanctions against Russia, domestic developers of unmanned vehicles began to experience difficulties in purchasing equipment. Smart Engines CEO Vladimir Arlazarov clarified that the problems arose due to logistics.

By transferring the work of its services to external clouds, Yandex seeks to provide itself with mobility, emphasize international status, and also reduce sanctions risks, Arlazarov said.^[1]

Creating a Company

The international part of Yandex (since 2022 the company has been in the process of restructuring and divides assets into Russian and foreign ones) has opened a self-driving car development unit in Austin, Texas. This became known on September 8, 2023.

The direction of self-driving Yandex machines began to work abroad under the Avride brand. Previously, it functioned under the name Yandex Self Driving Group. As it clarifies TASS on September 8, 2023, the renaming took place until June 2023, and not so long ago Avride launched its own website.

Foreign Yandex launched a division of unmanned vehicles

It says that several hundred engineers work on the project, most of whom were previously involved in Yandex drones. In addition, according to the Avride web resource, the service is already helping partners in different countries, "from South Korea to the UAE," to expand delivery capabilities.

According to TASS, USA the Yandex Self Driving Group registered with the legal entity was also renamed. Its new name has not been specified.

An office is already in operation in Austin, Forbes reported. In the United States, some of the specialists of the Israeli drone development unit were also released. Another part of the team is waiting for American visas, said one of the sources of the publication, close to the Russian part of Yandex. How many employees plan to move from Israel to the United States, the interlocutor found it difficult to say.

According to him, financial reasons prompted the members of the Israeli team to move: it is expensive to live in the country. Those released to Israel in 2022 had tax breaks. So, in the first 12 months after moving to the country, foreigners can deduct from taxation living expenses - up to 330 shekels (about $87) per day or 50% of the salary. When the tax credits expired, some employees quit, the whistleblower alleges.^[2] 

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