Alphabet‘s Waymo is bringing its driverless ride-hailing services to London, the first European market for its robotaxi.

The company said in a release on Wednesday that it plans to start test drives on London’s roads in coming months, with human safety specialists at the wheel. It intends to open its robotaxi service next year, assuming it can get permissions from regulators as well as local and national leaders.

London will mark the company’s second international city after Tokyo, where testing began in early 2025.

Waymo has been aggressively expanding in the U.S., and now offers a commercial service in the Los Angeles area, Phoenix, San Francisco, Atlanta and Austin, Texas. The company has also announced plans to start robotaxi services in Miami and Washington, D.C., and said in August that it obtained permits to begin testing its autonomous vehicles with trained safety drivers on board in New York City.

In London, Waymo’s fleet will be comprised of Jaguar iPACE electric vehicles equipped with the company’s Waymo Driver autonomous systems. Waymo said it already employs engineering teams in Oxford and London, and that it plans to work with Moove to handle operations and maintenance for its fleet.

Moove provides vehicle financing to drivers who want to purchase a new vehicle for ride-hailing, and offers services like cleaning, some repairs and charging of electric vehicles to transportation businesses including Waymo and Uber, which is an investor in the startup.

In June, the U.K. announced an accelerated framework for commercial pilots by AV ventures, an effort to bring self-driving investments to the region. London also established a “Vision Zero” goal earlier this year to eliminate all serious injuries and deaths in its transportation systems by 2041.

Waymo says its system “is involved in five times fewer injury-causing collisions, and twelve times fewer injury-causing collisions with pedestrians compared to humans,” according to the company’s analysis of its own data.

The company has also reported that its self-driving vehicles have logged 100 million “fully autonomous miles” on public roads, and provided more than 10 million paid rides to passengers to-date.

Waymo is part of Alphabet’s “Other Bets” segment, which brought in revenue of $373 million in the second quarter on a loss of $1.25 billion. Alphabet plans to report third-quarter results on Oct. 29.

Wayve, a U.K.-based startup backed by SoftBank and Microsoft, previously announced that it plans to bring a robotaxi commercial pilot to London next year. While Waymo uses radar, lidar and other sophisticated sensors in its vehicles, Wayve is developing camera-based systems, an approach that’s similar to Tesla’s pursuits.

— CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

WATCH: Lyft CEO on partnership with Waymo

Autonomous driving firms Pony.ai and WeRide have received approval from China’s securities regulator for secondary listings in Hong Kong, as the companies look to raise funds and continue their global expansion. 

The China Securities Regulatory Commission announced Tuesday that both companies had filed to issue and list shares in Hong Kong. Chinese companies seeking a foreign listing are required to file an application with the CSRC in advance, giving the regulators final say on whether the company can go public overseas.

Pony.ai and WeRide, which are already listed in the United States, can issue about 102 million new shares each for their Hong Kong listings.

WeRide has tapped Morgan Stanley and China International Capital Corporation to work on the listing, according to a Reuters report. Neither WeRide nor Pony.ai immediately responded to CNBC’s inquiry on their IPO plans. 

Pony.ai CEO James Peng had told CNBC in July that the company was exploring a Hong Kong listing. Hong Kong would offer “close proximity” to the company’s home market of China, which is something that would interest a lot of investors, Peng said. 

Pony.ai and WeRide, both headquartered in Guangzhou, are amongst a growing wave of Chinese companies seeking secondary listings in Hong Kong, in what has been a bounce-back year for the city’s IPO market.

The Chinese companies’ move to dual list also comes as they expand their presence to new regions, including the Middle East, Europe and Asian countries such as Singapore, although they have yet to receive full approvals to operate their robotaxis in most of those regions. 

In the U.S., both companies have partnered with Uber, with hopes of deploying their robotaxis on the firm’s ride-hailing platform after receiving approval. In China, they have already begun operating fully autonomous robotaxis in major cities, which can be hailed via their respective apps. 

The companies have smaller autonomous vehicle fleets when compared to more established players such as Baidu‘s Apollo Go in China and Alphabet‘s Waymo in the U.S.

Pony.ai launched its IPO in November with shares priced at $13 apiece — the stock has gained more than 60% since. WeRide debuted on the Nasdaq, with the IPO priced at $15.50 a share in October 2024, and its stock has lost over 30% so far.

Dutch semiconductor equipment giant ASML on Wednesday looked to calm concerns over 2026 growth as it warned that it expects a “significant” sales decline in China.

The firm said it does not expect 2026 total net sales to be below 2025 and warned that it expects customer demand and sales in China to decline significantly next year compared to 2024 and 2025.

Guidance was key for the firm after shares sank in July when it warned that it could not confirm growth in 2026 due to increasing macro-economic and geopolitical uncertainty.

Here’s how ASML did versus LSEG consensus estimates for the third quarter:

• Net sales: 7.516 billion euros versus 7.79 billion euros expected
• Net profit: 2.125 billion euros vs 2.11 billion euros expected

ASML, which recently became the most valuable listed firm in Europe, is among the companies in the semiconductor industry which have been impacted by both domestic export restrictions in its Dutch homebase, and the U.S.’ tariff policy.

Analysts have recently been bullish on the chip giant with Morgan Stanley, UBS and Jefferies among the banks upgrading the stock. Morgan Stanley analysts said the expansion of AI chip foundries and an increase in semiconductor chip manufacturing in China were expected to drive growth. Meanwhile, ahead of the earnings release, UBS pointed to better-than-expected smartphone and PC sales and AI-led memory growth.

ASML is also expected to benefit from Nvidia and Intel’s $5 billion deal as semiconductor equipment demand increases.

This is a breaking news story. Please refresh for updates.