What is DRIVE AI?
DRIVE AI brings together industry, government, and academia to address the system-level challenges of deploying advanced mobility technologies at scale. Rather than focusing on vehicles alone, the consortium concentrates on the infrastructure, data, operations, and workforce conditions required for safe and effective deployment. Based at UC Berkeley and supported by an active ecosystem of public-sector partners, DRIVE AI provides a neutral environment where members can engage early with emerging deployment frameworks, operational requirements, and real-world constraints.
Why DRIVE AI
While innovation in automation, electrification, and AI is accelerating, scaled deployment remains constrained by fragmented infrastructure, unclear operational expectations, workforce gaps, and limited access to real-world test environments.
DRIVE AI exists to close that gap by aligning applied research, shared infrastructure, and workforce development with the realities of public-sector operations and deployment timelines. Through a neutral, pre-competitive model, the consortium enables companies to engage early, reduce deployment risk, and shape the frameworks that will guide future implementation.
Research Focus
DRIVE AI’s research thrusts focus on the operational and infrastructure challenges that define real-world deployment of advanced mobility systems. Core areas include connected and cooperative infrastructure, digital twins for safety analysis and operational planning, work zone and emergency response coordination, infrastructure sensing and data integration, and deployment-ready automation frameworks. These focus areas are shaped collaboratively with industry and public-sector partners to ensure applied research remains grounded in implementation realities and transferable across corridors and regions.
What Members Gain
Through DRIVE AI, members engage in a pre-competitive, deployment-focused ecosystem that connects industry with public agencies, real-world environments, and applied research. The consortium is designed to reduce deployment risk, accelerate learning, and provide early insight into the technical, operational, and workforce conditions shaping the future of connected and automated mobility.
Testbeds & Collaboration at RFS
Located just six miles from UC Berkeley’s main campus, the Richmond Field Station (RFS) is the physical home of DRIVE AI - a 175-acre applied research campus for connected, electrified, and autonomous systems. RFS brings together an AV test track, V2X corridors, drone testing zones, charging and microgrid infrastructure, and open-air labs that allow partners to move rapidly from concept to deployment. The site also includes shared offices, coworking areas, and a makerspace where researchers, startups, and corporate teams prototype, test, and refine emerging mobility technologies side by side. As a living laboratory, RFS links research, policy, and real-world infrastructure, enabling DRIVE AI members to demonstrate technologies, host pilots, and connect directly with Berkeley’s engineering and data-science expertise.
ITS Berkeley
For more than 75 years, UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies has led global advances in transportation technology, research, policy, and deployment. ITS brings together nine departments and more than a dozen world-class centers shaping the systems we rely on today and tomorrow - including Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH), pioneers in automated vehicles and connected corridors; Berkeley DeepDrive (BDD), advancing AI and computer vision for autonomous driving; the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC), leaders in shared mobility and electrification; SafeTREC, improving road safety through data-driven policy; NEXTOR, modeling aviation operations for the FAA; and the UC Pavement Research Center (UCPRC) and Tech Transfer Program, translating innovation into practice.
This legacy of innovation provides the foundation for DRIVE AI. As AI transforms transportation, coordination across sectors is essential. DRIVE AI extends Berkeley’s tradition of research-to-real-world impact, creating the collaborative platform that turns innovation into safe, scalable deployment.