China’s Baidu finishes building ‘world’s largest’ test ground for autonomous vehicle, smart driving systems

Baidu says it has completed the world’s largest site to test both autonomous driving and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication

The Apollo Park in Beijing is equipped with facilities to support the full autonomous vehicle development process from research to testing

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The 13,500 square metre (145,300 sq ft) Apollo Park in Beijing’s Yizhuang Economic Development Zone houses more than 200 self-driving vehicles. Photo: Handout

Published: 5:30am, 28 May 2020Updated: 4:31pm, 29 May 2020

Corrected [4:31pm, 29 May, 2020]

[4:31pm, 29 May, 2020]
Story has been updated to clarify that AutoX and Didi Chuxing received approval to operate self-driving cars in Jiading. An earlier version of the story incorrectly stated that Pony.ai had received a licence.

Chinese search engine giant and artificial intelligence (AI) champion Baidu said on Tuesday that it has completed construction of what it claims to be the world’s largest testing ground for autonomous driving and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication.

The 13,500 square metre (145,300 sq ft) Apollo Park in Beijing’s Yizhuang Economic Development Zone houses more than 200 self-driving vehicles and is equipped with facilities to support the full autonomous vehicle development process from research to testing, Baidu said in a statement on Tuesday.

At the park, Baidu will be collecting and storing data from the daily operations of its fleet of Apollo self-driving cars and testing out controlling vehicles remotely via the cloud, it said.

Baidu said that it is also testing applications that support vehicle-to-infrastructure communication at Apollo Park. Such technologies, which are also being tested by other Chinese tech giants such as Huawei, can remotely connect vehicles with a variety of road traffic elements such as traffic lights, cameras and speed limit signs.

Rows of self-driving vehicles in Apollo Park. Photo: Handout

Autonomous cars are high on the development agenda for both the US and China, but the technology has been hard to perfect as navigating in busy, real-world environments is difficult.

Baidu started development of self-driving technologies in 2013. Its self-driving unit Apollo has tested autonomous driving cars in 24 cities around the world and completed more than 100,000 passenger trips, the company said.

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