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TECH TECHNOLOGY
Baidu to Open Source Its Self-Driving Technology
Baidu is in talks to use its technology with several Chinese, U.S. and German auto makers
By Liza Lin
Updated April 18, 2017 10:47 p.m. ET
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SHANGHAI— Baidu Inc. BIDU 0.66% will share software technology it is developing for self-driving cars in a bid to catch up with competitors including General Motors Co. and Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc.
Open sourcing Baidu’s capabilities in functions such as route planning, vehicle control and operating systems will help Baidu and the autonomous-vehicle industry develop more rapidly, Baidu group President Qi Lu said in an interview.
Mr. Lu said Beijing-based Baidu, best known for its Chinese search engine, is in talks to use its technology with several Chinese, U.S. and German auto makers but declined to identify them.
Baidu and other executives are in Shanghai this week for Auto Shanghai, China’s biggest annual car show, where they will discuss Baidu’s push into autonomous vehicles.
Mr. Lu, a former senior executive at Microsoft Corp. , was hired in January as the No. 2 to Chief Executive Officer Robin Li. In that role, he will also oversee Baidu’s push into artificial intelligence, which includes self-driving cars.
In his first one-on-one interview since taking the job, the 55-year-old Mr. Lu acknowledged the company had recently lost some of its top talent, including chief scientist Andrew Ng, who announced his resignation in March.
“We certainly wish some of the people you mentioned, especially Andrew, had not left,” Mr. Lu said. “They had made tremendous contributions to Baidu,” Mr. Lu said.
“At the same time, people do move. In our industry, it’s somewhat the norm,” he added. “If you look at Google, Facebook , Amazon, there’s always talent flow.”
Baidu is betting that the value from autonomous vehicles is centered on collecting and processing data from riders, said Michael Dunne, president of Hong Kong-based Dunne Automotive, an advisory that facilitates auto-tech investments between the U.S. and China.
“In five to 10 years, autonomous-driving functions will be standard in the industry, just like power steering. Then, the value will come from the data in the car: what people do, where do they go,” Mr. Dunne said.
This open-platform concept was tested by Tesla Inc. founder Elon Musk almost three years ago, when Mr. Musk decided to offer open access to Tesla patents out of frustration that electric-vehicle sales remained a fraction of total car sales.
Still, Baidu competes with a growing list of U.S. technology and automotive companies investing billions to disrupt the auto industry. Google, Apple Inc. and auto makers GM and Ford Motor Co. are among those investing heavily.
“We have huge respect for these companies, but we are taking a different route,” Mr. Lu said. “We believe in an open approach, a partnership-centric way, and we believe our knowledge of the China market will be our advantage.”
Baidu has AI strengths, but it has lagged behind in commercializing them, said Bhavtosh Vajpayee, an analyst with Bernstein Research. He cited the success Amazon has had with its voice-enabled assistant Alexa as an example of how Baidu could monetize its voice-recognition technology.
“Fresh thinking at the top and some of the management churn could turn out to be a blessing in disguise perhaps?” said Mr. Vajpayee, who is based in Hong Kong.
Last year, Baidu saw its online-advertising business hit hard by stricter Chinese regulations, and its market value has trailed rivals Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Baidu has dubbed its open-source driving project Apollo, after the U.S. space program that put astronauts on the moon. Mr. Lu said it is on track to deliver autonomous commercial vehicles in 2018 and will mass produce self-driving vehicles by the end of 2020. The company demonstrated its self-driving car at China’s internet conference in Wuzhen last year and has been conducting road tests in China and California.
Baidu said its system is designed to work with off-the-shelf hardware such as components or vehicle-platform bases. That stands in contrast to Waymo, which has developed its own hardware such as sensors that it says are integrated into the system.
Using Baidu’s software will also give car makers access to critical high-quality mapping technology in China, a space that foreign technology companies have made little inroads in.
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