Uber’s self-driv­ing ef­forts here are part of a crowd that in­cludes Ford and its $1 bil­lion in­vest­ment in Strip Dis­trict-based ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence startup, Argo AI; an emerg­ing startup called Aurora In­no­va­tion led by for­mer em­ploy­ees of Te­sla, Google and Uber; and tech com­pany Del­phi.

“Pitts­burgh is one of the core cen­ters of tal­ent right now for this in­dus­try,” said Ster­ling Ander­son, a founder of Aurora In­no­va­tion.

At stake is not just the mar­ket for self-driv­ing cars but also the an­cil­lary mar­kets in which com­pa­nies hope to li­cense cus­tom hard­ware and soft­ware to tech com­pa­nies and ve­hi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ers.