China's Baidu to bring its driverless cars to Uber globally

Baidu has struck a concern with Uber to deploy its autonomous cars connected the ride-hailing giant's level extracurricular the U.S. and mainland China.

The archetypal deployments are expected to hap successful Asia and the Middle East aboriginal this year. The 2 companies said the multi-year concern volition spot "thousands" of Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicles connected Uber globally.

Baidu shares jumped 4.5% successful premarket commercialized successful the U.S. pursuing the news, portion Uber banal was much than 1% higher.

For Baidu, the determination volition assistance to internationalize its driverless car concern extracurricular of China. Uber volition meantime summation a proven spouse to instrumentality connected autonomous driving rivals astir the world.

After the launch, a rider requesting a travel connected Uber whitethorn beryllium fixed the enactment to hail a driverless Apollo Go car, the 2 companies said.

In China, Baidu has been operating its ain robotaxi work since 2021 successful large cities similar Beijing, letting users hail an Apollo Go car done the app.

But the Beijing-headquartered institution has stated its ambitions to grow its operations to different planetary markets. This year, Baidu announced plans to statesman autonomous driving investigating and services successful Dubai, portion CNBC reported that the institution is besides looking to grow into Europe.

By partnering with Uber, Baidu has recovered a institution with a widely-used app and that operates successful 15,000 cities globally. Uber meantime has looked to spouse with driverless exertion companies aft selling its ain autonomous conveyance portion successful 2020.

"As the world's largest level of its kind, spanning mobility, delivery, and freight, Uber is uniquely positioned to assistance AV leaders similar Baidu bring their autonomous exertion to the world," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said successful a property release.

This year, Waymo, the driverless car institution owned by Google-parent Alphabet, began offering robotaxi rides successful Austin, Texas done the Uber app. In the U.K., Uber partnered with startup Wayve to motorboat trials of afloat autonomous rides successful the country.