Uber and Baidu plan to launch robotaxis on the ride-sharing platform in several markets outside of the U.S. and mainland China through a multiyear partnership.
Baidu’s autonomous vehicles will be available on the Uber app in Asia and the Middle East later this year, the companies said in a statement Tuesday. Thousands of vehicles will be deployed as part of the partnership, the companies said. Future rollouts will also include Europe and Oceania, an Uber spokesperson said.
Shares of Uber rose as much as 1.4% after markets opened in New York. Baidu’s American depositary receipts jumped as much as 7%.
Baidu, which runs one of the largest fleets of robotaxis in China, is the latest Chinese autonomous driving technology company to partner with Uber to launch its services overseas. Baidu’s robotaxi service, Apollo Go, has provided more than 11 million public rides in more than a dozen cities globally, exceeding the 10 million rides by Alphabet’s Waymo as of late May. Baidu has also been eyeing an expansion of its services in Switzerland, Singapore and Malaysia.
Other Chinese firms like U.S.-listed WeRide, Pony AI and Momenta have also struck agreements with Uber to offer robotaxis on the platform in some European and Middle Eastern markets in the years ahead.
San Francisco-based Uber has struck more than a dozen global partnerships with technology developers and automakers, including Waymo, as it positions itself as an investor and commercialization platform for driverless vehicles, rather than developing the technology in-house. Autonomous rides are currently available on the Uber app in Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta and Abu Dhabi thanks to those arrangements.
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