Chinese Internet giant Baidu on Tuesday launched its upgraded autonomous driving platform Apollo 2.0, opening new possibilities for nighttime excursions under complex road conditions, especially in urban areas.
"The latest version of Apollo is definitely the most powerful autonomous driving platform. It has successfully combined cloud services, software, reference hardware, and vehicles, and is expected to fully support the world's four important computing platforms, including NVIDA, Intel, NXP, and Renasas," Wang Jin, Baidu's senior vice president and general manager of the level-four autonomous driving department, was quoted as saying by Thepaper.cn during the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
According to Wang, the platform will play an important role in both private vehicles and public transportation sectors. The company has decided to roll out Level 3 autonomous vehicles by 2020, with the help of its partner, Chert Automotive, and will kick off mass-production of driverless buses in 2018. Thanks to its partnership with Access Services, a public paratransit service company, Baidu will initiate a pilot program to provide autonomous car services for seniors and disabled citizens in Los Angeles by the end of 2018.
In addition to the launch of the platform, Baidu also announced the establishment of a talent recruitment plan in Singapore, with an investment of $200 million. The company will also build a global lab for Apollo, with affiliations in Silicon Valley, Seattle, Singapore, and Beijing.
