Alphabet's Waymo has picked Singapore as its first Southeast Asian market, announcing plans to run a paid, fully autonomous robotaxi service in the city-state from 2028. It is the third international expansion the Google sister company has revealed in 2026, alongside earlier plans for Tokyo (2027) and select European cities.
Jaguar I-PACE Fleet And A 2027 Training Phase
Waymo will ship all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles to Singapore in the coming months. A 2027 manual-driving phase will train the Waymo Driver stack on Singapore's road markings, roundabouts, ERP gantries and monsoon-season weather before any paid rides start. The 2028 rollout is planned to launch with rider-only trips, no safety driver behind the wheel.
A Crowded Autonomy Market
Singapore is far from empty territory. Chinese autonomous vehicle players WeRide and Pony AI already operate driverless shuttles in the Punggol district under agreements with the Land Transport Authority. Grab, ComfortDelGro and local startup MooVita have all been running pilots since 2023. Waymo's advantage is scale: the fleet already logs several million paid rides a week across 15 U.S. cities including its most recent addition, Las Vegas.
Local Partners And Jobs Framing
Waymo has not named a Singapore fleet-operations partner, though it has followed a similar template in Tokyo with taxi app GO and taxi operator Nihon Kotsu handling ground operations. Singapore's transport minister emphasised that the country still has roughly 70,000 licensed taxi drivers, and the projected autonomous fleet size sits well below that number.
What Waymo Said
"Singapore has built one of the safest, most efficient transportation ecosystems in the world," Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in the announcement. The company framed the deployment as an opportunity to prove the Waymo Driver in dense tropical conditions before wider Southeast Asian expansion.
The Singapore deployment is Waymo's fourth international commitment in twelve months, extending a run that began with the Las Vegas launch and a Tokyo pilot with Nihon Kotsu. Alphabet has not disclosed the size of the initial Singapore fleet or pricing.
Reporting based on coverage from Fortune, Bloomberg, The Edge Singapore and TechNode Global.