Gasgoo Munich- On January 29, Black Sesame Technologies signed a strategic partnership agreement with Apollo Go, the autonomous ride-hailing platform owned by Baidu.
Under the agreement, Black Sesame Technologies will serve as the computing power provider for product development within the partnership, handling technical research and commercialization. Apollo Go will provide technical support during solution verification. The companies plan to collaborate on the autonomous driving ecosystem to attract top-tier partners and accelerate the maturation of China's intelligent driving supply chain.
Image Credit: Black Sesame Technologies
The significance of this partnership is that Black Sesame brings a complete technology stack, a robust product matrix, and experience in mass-producing chips for automakers. Apollo Go, a global autonomous ride-hailing service, already operates in 22 cities—including Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Hong Kong, and Dubai—providing extensive experience in multi-scenario deployment.
One specializes in underlying hardware support; the other leads in upper-layer scenarios and data. This "chip-plus-operations" combination aims to achieve a closed loop for long-term Level 4 autonomous driving.
Shan Jizhang, founder and CEO of Black Sesame, noted that the company's high-performance, reliable computing platform provides the underlying power for intelligent driving. The chip platform's efficiency and engineering capabilities, combined with Apollo Go's operational data and system experience, are expected to accelerate the closed-loop development of the Level 4 autonomous driving supply chain.
Wang Yunpeng, vice president of Baidu and president of its Intelligent Driving Group, emphasized Baidu's focus on collaborating with core supply chain partners. This alliance integrates Apollo Go's operational track record with Black Sesame's automotive-grade, high-computing chips. By aligning upstream and downstream technologies, the partnership aims to advance China's autonomous driving industry.
The two companies will deepen their collaboration on technology integration and co-creation of scenarios, while uniting with more industry partners to build a safe, efficient, and open intelligent driving ecosystem.
