China's Didi Chuxing to Move Into Uber's Turf, Opens U.S. Self-Driving Tech Labs
Didi Chuxing, Uber's ride-sharing rival in China, has just opened up its new research lab in the United States. The Chinese company that was able to acquire Uber's China business after a hotly contested acquisition battle, has now opened up a research and development office in Mountain View, California.
In a bold move, as seen by industry watchers observing the company, Didi Chuxing has started up its US-based research lab dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) research and development of self-driving vehicle technology. According to Tech Crunch, aggressive as this recent move may seem, it is not yet a signal that the Chinese company is positioning itself to expand its ride-sharing service into North America as of this time.
Instead, the new facility is part of the Beijing-based company's much needed campaign to move its AI and self-driving research to places where it can attract crucial talent. That place just happens to be the backyard of other US-based companies that are also looking to develop their own self-driving cars. This signals that competition in the autonomous driving vehicle segment is heating up, and with the current situation in the field, there is just not enough top-ranking talent to go around, according to a feature by Recode.
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In a hire that can be seen as a shot at rival Uber, Didi Chuxing has just lured over Charlie Miller, an engineer well known for having developed an exploit that was able to infiltrate and stop a Jeep from a remotely operated device. Miller was previously part of Uber's self-driving vehicle department, and now he's leaving Uber to head the Chinese company's security and safety development teams.
The Beijing company has also managed to poach away key personnel from Google's self-driving vehicle departments. Jia Zhaoyin, previously a senior software engineer working for Google-backed autonomous vehicle project, Waymo, is now over at Didi Chuxing as well.
