Gasgoo Munich- DiDi Autonomous Driving has established a new research platform, DiDi Voyager Labs, aimed at accelerating next-generation autonomous driving technologies, according to a post on the company's WeChat account.
Image source: DiDi Autonomous Driving
Based on the new lab, the company has entered a joint research partnership with a team led by Professor Li Shengbo at Tsinghua University. The collaboration will concentrate on frontier areas including multimodal large models, world models and reinforcement learning, with the goal of advancing end-to-end autonomous driving systems from research breakthroughs to commercial deployment.
The DiDi Voyager Labs will operate under a model that combines dedicated on-the-ground management, shared resources and coordinated technical programs. Working within a unified engineering framework, the initiative seeks to build a seamless pipeline linking academic research, industrial engineering and commercial application. Beyond joint technology development, the partners plan to cultivate interdisciplinary AI talent while aligning fundamental research more closely with real-world mobility demands to speed up technology transfer.
Professor Li noted that autonomous driving has become a strategic focal point in global technology competition. He highlighted Tsinghua's research depth and talent base in vehicle intelligence, alongside DiDi's nearly decade-long experience in developing and deploying core self-driving technologies. Closer collaboration, he suggested, will improve the efficiency of translating academic advances into scalable engineering solutions, contributing to broader technological self-reliance and industrial upgrading.
Zhang Bo, co-founder of DiDi and CEO of DiDi Autonomous Driving, said the company remains committed to responsible innovation while balancing in-house R&D with open collaboration. As autonomous driving enters a new phase driven by large AI models, he described the DiDi Voyager Labs as a strategic step toward deeper industry-academia cooperation. Through the platform, DiDi Autonomous Driving plans to provide university researchers with access to real-world operating scenarios and industrial-grade computing resources to support advanced experimentation and faster commercialization.
Looking ahead, DiDi Autonomous Driving said it will continue to increase investment in AI research, strengthen proprietary innovation and expand its partnership with Tsinghua University. The DiDi Voyager Labs is positioned as an open innovation hub designed to attract leading scientific resources and drive technological progress across the intelligent mobility ecosystem, as competition intensifies in China's rapidly evolving self-driving sector.
