Chinese internet giant Baidu has teamed up with local taxi firm Shouqi Limousine & Chauffeur to develop driverless vehicle technology, according to reports in China.
The taxi and livery service is a subsidiary of state owned Shouqi group and operates car services in more than 50 cities nationwide.
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As part of the preliminary agreement, Baidu will provide Shouqi with its current mapping systems which Shoupi will help develop into high precision maps for self driving vehicles.
In the end, Baidu has plans for a system which allows vehicles to navigate using artificial intelligence technology.
Baidu is moving aggressively into the driver assisted and autonomous driving sector and already has a number of agreements with global artificial intelligence leaders including Nvidia and Intel owned Mobileye.
It also has an agreement with Chinese bus-maker Kinglong to develop autonomous buses by 2018 and with local automaker BAIC group to mass produce level four autonomous vehicles by 2021.
