Baidu Offers Open–source Car Software as Lure for Data
发布时间:2017年09月12日
发布人:nanyuzi  

Baidu Offers Open–source Car Software as Lure for Data

 

Chinese search engine Baidu has announced its self-driving car software is ready for use by anyone who wants to download it, for free, to lure users to its open-source artificial intelligence platforms and gather data.

 

Baidu’s new Apollo platform provides free autonomous driving software to any company, including Baidu’s competitors, which can then be customized to develop their own autonomous vehicle.

 

The software is usable “out of the box”, according to Baidu engineers at the company’s annual developers’ conference on Wednesday. That means it can be used immediately with zero modification on a Lincoln MKZ hybrid and little modification on several other vehicle models.

 

Baidu founder Robin Li arrived at Wednesday’s conference in a vehicle using Apollo’s self-driving software, a move that is being investigated byBeijing’s traffic police. 

 

The company also announced it was partnering with American chipmaker Nvidia to supply the hardware behind Baidu’s AI platforms.

 

Baidu has placed its bets on AI as its future source of growth, after its search engine advertising revenues were hit by a medical scandal.

 

The company is striving to be the Android of AI – to provide an open-source platform for all comers. In so doing, it positions itself at the center of users’ data flows, with Chinese tech companies in a pitched battle for access to consumer data.

 

Baidu also hopes it can use its vast amounts of user data – one of the most valuable inputs to creating effective AI programs – to regain a competitive edge against its international AI peers.

 

Baidu’s artificial intelligence framework, Paddle Paddle, is in competition with Google’s TensorFlow and Facebook’s Caffe2, which also provide developers with computing power and a library of AI algorithms.

 

The company will share its data, generated largely from billions of daily search engine and map queries, with developers.

 

In recent years, Baidu has slipped behind more mobile – savvy competitors Alibaba and Tencent, while revenues from Baidu’s core search engine and online advertising businesses dipped.

 

“In the long run, if Baidu persists with its strategy of creating an open AI platform and an AI ecosystem, this will be good for revenues,” said Zhang Zhuo, analyst at market research company IDC. Mr. Zhang expected it would take five years before such AI endeavors became Baidu’s main source of revenue, as opposed to search engine advertising.

 

A version of Apollo the company plans to launch this December will be capable of enabling vehicles to drive autonomously in a quiet urban environment.

 

“Baidu does not have its own car yet, so it is willing to offer Chinese automakers free access to the almighty driving data,” said Michael Dunne, the founder of consultancy Dunne Automotive, with reference to commercial potential of such data. “Chinese state enterprises are far behind in the autonomous tech race. They might be more willing to co-operate or even form partnerships with Baidu.”

 

The push for self-driving cars has not been a completely smooth ride for Baidu. A much-heralded partnership with BMW fell through for undisclosed reasons last November. Meanwhile, Baidu is rubbing up against its publicly stated deadline of 2020 to sell fully autonomous cars.

 

“Baidu’s driverless car program still has a lot of kinks to work out, so is looking to bring as many major industry players into the fold as it can to help accelerate development,” said Mark Natkin, managing director for Marbridge Consulting.