Didi plans major overseas push this year with expansion into traffic management
Cheng Wei, the founder and chief executive of Didi Chuxing, expects his company to rival Chinese internet giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent in being part of smart city projects
Chinese ride-hailing services provider Didi Chuxing aims to step up its expansion plans by undertaking more smart city projects, putting itself in direct competition against the country’s three-largest internet companies.
Didi, which is the world’s most valuable start-up, is betting that its smart city traffic management platform would help open up a new era in urban transport, in which artificial intelligence (AI) manages traffic lights and other related solutions for cities, according to company founder and chief executive Cheng Wei.
“Users will only need a smartphone in the future. Our smart transportation brain will take care of the rest, telling people what means of transportation to take and which routes to take,” said Cheng at Didi’s annual meeting held in Beijing last week.
Didi is the latest Chinese technology firm that is gearing up to become a major player in smart city products and services, which is a global market that is forecast to be worth US$1.6 trillion by 2020, according to research firm Frost & Sullivan.
Smart cities deploy information and communications technology solutions in three or more functional areas of a city government, according to research firm IHS. Examples include mobile and transport, energy and sustainability, physical infrastructure, governance, and safety and security.