Didi Research President He Xiaofei leaves to reportedly build self-driving truck company

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- He Xiaofei, Didi Research president of China's ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (Didi), has left the company. Reportedly, he has built his own self-driving truck venture after the resignation. The self-driving truck dubbed “feibu” developed by the startup has entered road test stage, according to local media.

According to public information, He Xiaofei graduated from the University of Chicago in December 2005 with a Ph.D. degree in computer science. After that, he served at Yahoo! Research Labs as a research scientist. In 2007, he became a professor at Zhejiang University where he made progresses in such academic realms like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and computer vision.

In 2015, He Xiaofei joined Didi Chuxing as the leader of Didi Chuxing's core transaction engine. Meanwhile, he researched projects such as car-pooling, dynamic price adjustment, order allocation, transport capacity dispatching, heat map, predicting supply, intelligent subsidiary and route planning.

Besides, He Xiaofei was also an important contributor of the Didi Research's establishment. Founded in April 2016, Didi Research (formerly known as Didi Machine Learning Research) named He Xiaofei as its first president who took charge of DiDi's big data business and reported to Didi Chuxing's CTO Zhang Bo.

In addition, He Xiaofei devoted to promoting the direct cooperation between Didi Chuxing and colleges. The company launched a plan that gives preferential helps to those masters and doctors with brilliant AI algorithm understandings and trainings. 

Self-driving truck is a hot area into which many tech companies flock. For instance, Tesla had already unveiled an unmanned semi-trailer truck last year with a maximum range of 800 kilometers and a load capacity up to 36 ton which is expected to hit the market in 2019.

Besides, the China's e-commerce giant JD.com announced the R&D progress of its unmanned truck in September last year. In cooperation with SAIC Maxus and Dongfeng Auto, the co-developed unmanned truck had been tested on roads.