Didi Chuxing releases its first intelligent driving video

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing (Didi) released its first intelligent driving video at its annual meeting. From the video, Didi's CTO Zhang Bo, sitting in the passenger seat, experienced this intelligent driving with a staff sitting in the driver’s seat with his hands off the steering wheel.

The video records that the vehicle completed some smart operations relying on the mapping localization and in-vehicle sensors' detection, such as making a turn, bypassing obstacles and other vehicles.

On January 26 this year, Didi announced that it has opened an artificial intelligence lab (AI Labs) in Beijing that will work on technologies for the company's intelligent traffic initiative. 

According to Didi, the lab will explore AI technologies to meet the challenges in AI field. The company stated that the AI Labs will focus on areas ranging from machine learning, natural language processing, speech recognition, computer vision, operational research, statistics and other promising technologies. 

According to relevant information, the driverless vehicle project of Didi was initiated one year ago.

Didi is not the first company who releases intelligent driving videos. In July 2017, a video pulled from the live stream of a technology conference showed Robin Li, CEO of Baidu, riding in the passenger seat of an autonomous vehicle on Beijing's 5th Ring Road. This video attracted a lot attention very soon. Besides, Pony.ai also released its first batch of videos to the public, which recorded some of routine vehicle tests without human manipulation in October last year.

A few days ago, Li Xiaopeng, Minister of China's Ministry of Transport revealed at a conference that the Ministry is formulating a technical regulation about driverless vehicle operations and has already started building a testing base. Meanwhile, it unites with other relevant departments to draw up guidance documents of driverless vehicle test.