Bengaluru: Ride-hailing platform Ola on Thursday said it plans to set up an Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in San Francisco with more than 150 engineers to help ramp up its engineering and development operations.

San Francisco is the home turf of arch-rival Uber Technologies Inc.

With a sole focus on development of new tech capabilities and innovation in urban mobility, the new facility will look to add talent, who will collaborate closely with global teams in the various geographies where Ola operates.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, Ola has a presence in 150 cities across India, besides operations in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, serving more than 150 million users with more than a billion rides annually.

Ola’s last international expansion was in April in the UK when it launched services in seven cities including Liverpool and Manchester.

The San Francisco centre will develop technology solutions across its electric mobility and connected vehicles unit, as well as lead experiments on autonomous vehicles. To achieve this, Ola is looking to hire experts across artificial intelligence, machine learning, data sciences, engineering and product development teams.

“We are very excited about launching Ola’s Advanced Technology Center in the Bay Area. The Valley and the talent ecosystem here are very conducive to the development of next-generation mobility solutions. This is also a big step in our journey as a global mobility player, with a mission that talent from around the world is inspired to join us on," said Ankit Bhati, co-founder and chief technology officer, Ola, in a statement.

Currently, Ola has four core operations.

Ola Electric is its electric vehicle arm, and the cab leasing and fleet management arm operate under Ola Fleet Technologies.

The company also offers micro-insurance and online payment products under the Ola Financial Services arm, as well as Ola Food brand which operates ‘dark kitchens’, which are typically no-frills kitchens which service only online food delivery orders.

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