Baidu inks agreement with Wuhan city for unmanned driving scale commercial operation

Beijing (Gasgoo)- On January 11, China’s tech giant Baidu inked a cooperation agreement with the municipal government of Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province, in the field of intelligent connected vehicles, specifically, the commercialization of self-driving vehicles. 

Baidu Robotaxi in Wuhan; photo credit: Baidu

The two sides will jointly launch large-scale commercial operation of fully autonomous driving services and build the world's top-notch operation zone for self-driving vehicle services. 

Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, spoke highly of Hubei's industrial foundation, location advantages, and business environment, and introduced relevant information about the project. He said that he would make every effort to accelerate the implementation of the project, and jointly contribute to the high-quality development of Hubei Province through the deep integration of intelligent connected technologies to serve intelligent vehicles, intelligent transportation, and smart cities.

According to the agreement, Wuhan will actively and steadily promote the autonomous driving policy city-wide to gradually open up the applications of unmanned driving technologies in airports, highways, and other scenarios. In compliance to the regulations, the city will support Baidu Apollo and its affiliated parties in deploying large-scale commercial operation of self-driving vehicle services.