Didi sets up driverless lab in Silicon Valley near Apple headquarters

According to AppleInsider, Didi launched its own driverless car lab in Silicon Valley on Wednesday. Industry insiders pointed out that Didi's establishment of its own driverless car lab in the United States shows the Chinese company's ambition to expand its business abroad. So far, most of Didi's business is located in China.

The location of Didi's lab is also very interesting. It is located in Mountain View, between Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, and is relatively close to Cupertino, Apple's headquarters.

Although Didi did not disclose whether there is a direct connection between Apple and the lab, Apple invested $1 billion (about 6.92 billion yuan) in Didi last year. Apple's investment was the largest single investment in Didi at the time, and the move also marked a major change for Apple, which has a lot of money and has always preferred to make low-key acquisitions.

"We made this investment for many strategic reasons, including the opportunity to learn more about some areas of the Chinese market," said Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook. "Of course, we believe this investment will provide us with a strong return over time."

Didi's lab is also well-staffed. It includes many leaders in the robotics industry, artificial intelligence, and engineering. Charlie Miller, who became famous for remotely hacking a moving Jeep car, has left Uber's driverless team to lead Didi's security development team. Didi has also poached employees from Google's Waymo autonomous driving department, including senior software engineer Jia Zhaoyin.

Apple is developing its own self-driving vehicle project, Project Titan, but the effort has hit serious headwinds over the past year. After a round of layoffs, Apple's Project Titan team will make a decision by the end of 2017 to either move forward autonomously or bring in help from a third-party automaker.

Recently, a report indicated that Apple has turned its attention to the software side of self-driving car technology and has hired engineers from BlackBerry's QNX division to develop other in-car technologies such as augmented reality car navigation technology.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.