Baidu Apollo’s former veteran Luo Qi said to join NVIDIA’s automotive division

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Luo Qi, former head of software architecture, regulation, control, and vehicle interaction technology for Baidu's L2+ autonomous driving business, has joined NVIDIA's automotive division as Engineering Director, according to a local media outlet on February 26.

Photo credit: NVIDIA

Reportedly, in his new role, Luo will oversee such technological aspects as prediction, planning, and control, reporting to NVIDIA's automotive division head, Wu Xinzhou.

Luo joined Baidu in 2016 and worked at Baidu USA Research Institute, eventually becoming a Senior Chief Software Architect in 2022. Before leaving Baidu, he was responsible for the overall software architecture of the vehicle end for the Apollo Navigation Pilot (ANP) L2+ intelligent driving business, as well as modules such as prediction, planning, control, behavior data recording and annotation, and simulation evaluation, reporting to Wang Liang, Chief R&D Architect of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Group (IDG). 

Baidu’s ANP L2+ assistant driving solution has been deployed onto various vehicle models, including the Ji Yue 01 and the VOYAH Free.

According to another media’s report, since XPENG's former Vice President of Autonomous Driving, Wu Xinzhou, joined NVIDIA in August 2023, dozens of former XPENG employees have joined or are set to join NVIDIA's autonomous driving team. These talents primarily come from Wu Xinzhou's previous subordinates at XPENG and other domestic intelligent driving suppliers with production experience.

NVIDIA's autonomous driving team is currently distributed in China and the United States, with Wu Xinzhou leading an R&D team in China comprising over a hundred engineers.