Apollo landing soon: Baidu to launch its self-driving car

Baidu is to launch its self-driving car technology for restricted environment in July before gradually introducing fully autonomous driving capabilities on motorways and open city roads by 2020.

The project is named Apollo after the lunar landing programme, the Chinese search giant said, adding that it would work with partners who provide vehicles, sensors and other components for the new technology.

As part of its push into artificial intelligence (AI), the company in January named former Microsoft executive Qi Lu as chief operating officer.

Two months after the appointment, Baidu’s chief scientist Andrew Ng, who led AI and augmented reality (AR) projects, said he would step down.

The company also launched a $200m fund in October to focus on AI, AR, and deep learning, followed by a $3bn fund announced in September to target mid- and late- stage start-ups.

“AI has great potential to drive social development, and one of AI’s biggest opportunities is intelligent vehicles,” Mr Qi said in a statement.

In November, Baidu and BMW said they would end their joint research on self-driving cars due to differences in opinion on how to proceed.

Technology and automotive leaders contend that cars of the future will be capable of completely driving themselves, revolutionising the transportation industry, with virtually all carmakers as well as companies such as Alphabet’s Google and parts supplier Delphi investing heavily in developing the technology.