Baidu announces new open platform to help speed up the development of self-driving cars

Chinese tech giant Baidu has announced a new autonomous vehicle platform that could help car manufacturers produce self-driving vehicles faster. Called Project Apollo, Baidu says the platform encompasses both hardware and software, providing partners with the tech and open-source code needed to help their own vehicles perceive obstacles, plan their routes, and otherwise move around our world.

Baidu says it will first open up Project Apollo for cars operating in restricted environments in July, before offering it to vehicles driving in simple urban road conditions later this year. That’s ahead of a gradual rollout of self-driving features that should see cars operating fully autonomously on highways and regular roads by 2020.

The release comes as Baidu moves to position itself at the forefront of the autonomous vehicle industry. The Chinese company has aimed for the ambitious goal of getting a self-driving car to market by 2018, and is challenging rivals such as Google on its home turf, building a team of engineers based in Silicon Valley and scoring relevant permits so it can test vehicles in California.

The company says that it’s drawing on its strengths in artificial intelligence to build a “collaborative ecosystem” with Project Apollo. Baidu has invested in AI tech over the past few years, but suffered an apparent setback last month, when its chief artificial intelligence scientist — Andrew Ng — stepped down.

Baidu’s had previously collaborated with BMW on self-driving cars for two years, but the two companies broke off their partnership in 2016, after reportedly differing on the pace and direction of their research. Speaking soon after the end of the BMW deal, Wang Jiang — the head of Baidu’s autonomous car development team — said that company was looking for partners to help it meet its lofty aims of beating its competitors to market.

It will continue that search with Project Apollo. Baidu says it will look for partnerships, working with companies who provide “the best and most compatible vehicles, sensors, and other components” with which to test the platform.