Chinese search giant Baidu wants to build the ‘Android’ of autonomous vehicles

You may or may not be familiar with Chinese search giant Baidu but you might be hearing more from them in the future as they partnered with 50 companies to help develop their self-driving car platform. Some of the big names in the auto and tech industries have joined them, including Ford, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Intel. Baidu wants its Apollo platform to turn into a global program that can compete against the likes of Alphabet’s Waymo and Uber’s own autonomous vehicle. This even puts them up against the likes of its partner Ford’s own self-driving initiative.

Baidu wants to position Apollo as an open source software platform, though. Thus, drawing the comparison with Android. So that hardware and car makers can quickly deploy and customize the system. “It is in essence the ‘Android’ of the autonomous driving industry but more open and more powerful,” said Qi Lu, Baidu’s chief operating officer, at Baidu Create, the company’s inaugural artificial intelligence conference. “Apollo is not solely Baidu’s. It belongs to everyone in the ecosystem. And as we and our partners contribute to the platform in our areas of specialty, we all gain more, with the results far greater than just our own.”

Source: The Verge