5X Larger Than Samsung
Baidu, the largest search engine portal in China, raised a US$-1.5-billion self-driving car fund on September 21. It is said that Baidu raised the fund to strike back in response to a move made by Samsung Electronics which created the “Automotive Innovation Fund” amounting to a total of US$300 million only a week ago.
Baidu's autonomous driving car fund about five times larger than that of Samsung Electronics was named Apollo Fund. Baidu is planning to use Apollo Fund to invest in a total of 100 auto-drive projects.
“Apollo Fund” was named after Baidu's open source autonomous navigation software platform 'Apollo'. Reuters expects Baidu, the company that created Apollo Fund, to compete fiercely with autonomous drive technology companies in the United States.
Lately Baidu has been strengthening its collaboration system with the automobile industry to create a smart car or autonomous vehicle ecosystem. A case in point is collaboration with Hyundai Motor.
Hyundai Motor announced a plan to load its cars with “Baidu Map Auto” and “Duer OS Auto,” which were developed by Hyundai Motor through collaboration with Baidu at the CES Asia 2017 held at the Expo Center in Shanghai, China on June 7.
Duer OS Auto is an artificial intelligence voice-based service of Baidu. Hyundai Motor plans to release vehicles loaded with such services to China later at the end of this year. Analysis says that if a car is successfully launched, Baidu's position can naturally rise in the smart car or autonomous vehicle industry.
Baidu believes it will be possible for self-driving cars to run in China in 2020. In order to realize this, Baidu is working with Nvidia and TomTom to collaborate for autonomous vehicle-related projects.