BAIDU TO HIT ROAD WITH SELF-RIDING BUS

‘Solid plan’ for Apollo software platform in production cars by 2021

LAGUNA BEACH (California)

BAIDU chief executive Robin Li said on Tuesday the Chinese Internet giant will have a selfdriving bus on the road soon as it races for a lead in autonomous vehicles.

Baidu was collaborating with an array of companies on autonomous cars, and was working with a large bus maker in China to have a self-driving bus running a route by next year, said Li in an on-stage interview late on Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal D.Live conference, here.

Most major carmakers and technology titans including Google-parent Alphabet have been stepping up efforts on autonomous driving in recent years, convinced that these systems could eliminate most road accidents. Apple has a testing permit in California.

United States-based Tesla boasts that its models are built with the hardware for self-driving in event regulators give the technology a green light.

US chip maker Intel has a partnership with Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle unit Waymo, and plans for its own fleet of selfdriving cars.

Li said Baidu had a “solid plan” to have its Apollo software platform in fully-autonomous production cars by 2021, and in semiautonomous cars in two years.

Apollo software would provide smarts for navigating cars, with Baidu providing information, entertainment and other online offerings to passengers, according to Li.

“Our vision is that once a person is in the car, you never need to touch your phone any more; everything in the car is a better experience,” he said.

Baidu last month announced a US$1.5 billion (RM6.33 billion) investment in autonomous driving projects over the next three years, as it seeks to diversify its portfolio and compete with rivals.

In July, the company launched an initial version of autonomous driving platform “Apollo”.

While Apollo software was open and free, there were “lots of things” Baidu could do to make money, such as providing car map services, entertainment, or even insurance, according to Li.

Baidu was pumping 15 per cent of its revenue into research, with nearly all of that dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI), said Li.

Software smarts are needed to safely navigate cars with humans at the wheels.

“We have entered a new age, the age of AI,” he said. AFP

REUTERS PIC Baidu co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer Robin Li says at the Wall Street Journal Digital conference in California the world has entered the age of artificial intelligence.