Baidu, BAIC Group Partner On Self-Driving Car

As technology like artificial intelligence and autonomous abilities have become popular, more car companies have joined in on the development process. At CES 2017, Chinese search company Baidu and state-owned car company BAIC Group announced a partnership to develop self-driving cars for the Chinese marketplace.

According to Bloomberg, the companies look to debut its car at the Shanghai automotive show in April. Live testing for the car is also planned by the end of the year. Notably, the planned car will be slated to have Level 3 autonomous abilities. Cars with this level of self-driving ability still need an active human driver who can take over the wheel in case of emergency, but they don’t need to be constantly monitoring the car.

Per ZDNet, the companies’ partnership also extends to the car’s software. Both companies will work on HD maps for the car’s self-driving abilities and BAIC Group will include support for features like smartphone integration.

The partnership is one of several moves that Baidu has made within the autonomous driving space. Along with plans to set up a research facility in Seattle, the company launched a team back in April in Silicon Valley who has focused on developing self-driving cars. The facility’s work has focused on research and development of autonomous technology and is part of Baidu’s international research efforts.

Early last year, Baidu also discussed its hopes to have a commercially viable autonomous car for sale by 2018. Companies including NVIDIA also announced similar partnership efforts at CES this year.