Abstract: The oo-category of noncommutative or localizing motives is the recipient of the universal localizing invariant, a refinement of algebraic K-theory which is analogous to (topological) KK-theory. I will report on joint work with Vova Sosnilo and Christoph Winges, where we give a new perspective on this category, closer in spirit to the operator theoretic KK-category. Namely, we prove that this category is a localization of the oo-category of stable oo-categories. I will discuss this result as well as applications thereof.