Shanghai government strives to introduce Waymo autonomous car project

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information (hereinafter referred to as the SMCEI) strived to make a number of significant overseas projects settled in Shanghai, including the autonomous vehicle project of Waymo, during its visit in Silicon Valley from July 17 to 20, according to SMCEI's official website.

During the trip in Silicon Valley, Shanghai governmental delegation visited several tech companies, such as Google, Baidu USA, Synopsys, Applied Materials, ARM Holdings, Tesla, Pony ai., and Intel, etc.

To attract technical projects for Shanghai, Chen Mingbo, director of the SMCEI, elucidated the future development highlights for Shanghai and hoped that companies could increase investments in some key technical domains. Besides, he also analyzed the bottlenecks that hamper the implementation of major projects and delivered feasible solutions at the same time.

Before they left the U.S., Shanghai governmental representatives and relevant firms reached some common understandings in introducing several projects to Shanghai, including the Alphabet-owned Verily's life science project and Waymo's autonomous vehicle project, Synopsys's security software, ARM Holdings's innovation AI platform as well as Pony.ai's self-driving technologies, etc. 

In addition, Mr. Chen earnestly invited AI tech companies to attend the 2018 Global AI Conference to be held in Shanghai in September.

Members of the Shanghai governmental mission had trial ride of autonomous vehicles developed by Waymo, Baidu and Pony.ai. On 27 February 2018, Shanghai government issued the Shanghai Regulations on Intelligent and Connected Vehicles Road Testing, which legislatively paved the way for autonomous car development in this city. Moreover, some Shanghai-based automakers, like SAIC Motor and NIO, have been given governmental licenses that permit them to test autonomous vehicles on public roads.