Baidu, joining hands with the historic scenic town of Wuzhen, announced on Sunday that they will introduce driverless vehicles to this popular scenic spot in China.
The driverless vehicles refer to so-called “Level 4” or full self-driving automation. This means there is no human control involved throughout the whole trip other than the input of a destination, as defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“Vehicles that dominate the future will be software defined vehicles (SDVs) based on artificial intelligence, and the ultimate state would be driverless vehicles,” said Wang Jing, senior VP of Baidu.
Having had its first test drive in Beijing last December, Baidu worked to build pilot areas for driverless vehicles with Wuhu city of Anhui province and Shanghai International Automobile City this May. After being exhibited at the 2015 World Internet Conference, also known as the Wuzhen Summit, Baidu is for the first time cooperating with a scenic area.
Li Zhenyu, director of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Business Unit, said that Baidu will continue working with parties from all sides to accelerate the mass production of driverless cars for commercial use.
Baidu is China’s largest search engine giant, and now has created its own ecosystem covering sectors ranging from education, tourism, and healthcare, to big data, artificial intelligence, and deep learning.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)