From Roads to Replicas: A Conversation with Zenseact
Reconstructing Reality: How Simulation Is Powering the Next Era of Autonomous Driving
What happens when simulation steps out of the lab and into day-to-day development? In the latest episode of Deeper Learning, Parallel Domain CEO Kevin McNamara joins Veronika Nihlén and Erik Rosén from Zenseact to explore how sensor-level, data-driven replicas are changing the way teams test and validate autonomous systems.
The discussion dives deep into:
• Why simulation is the safest place for failure — “It takes a billion miles to make a safe AV… and one bad mile to ruin it.”
• The shift from procedural generation to reconstructive simulation using NeRFs and Gaussian splats.
• How end-to-end driving and neural reconstruction reshape safety validation.
• The “bitter lesson” of AI progress — and why data and compute continue to outpace hand-coded logic.
• How PD Replica turns 10 seconds of real driving into 1,000 hours of virtual testing.
As Veronika notes, “unlearning what we’ve known to be true” is sometimes essential for progress.
Tune in to hear how Zenseact and Parallel Domain are accelerating the journey toward safer, smarter, software-defined vehicles.
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