The Chinese plan to overtake all self-driving cars

The CEO of Baidu, Robin Li, arrived at his company's first AI developer conference, held in Beijing this week, in a vehicle that has the potential to reshape the world of self-driving cars. The vehicle was controlled using software that Baidu (50 Smartest Companies 2017) plans to offer for free in the coming years through a project called Apollo. By making the brains of a self-driving car available to anyone, the Apollo project could help China's many young carmakers get up to speed rapidly. It also reflects China's broader ambition to establish itself as a leading hub of artificial intelligence. Baidu's move of making its training data openly available marks a significant departure in the field of commercial AI, where the information used to train sophisticated algorithms is typically guarded with obsessive jealousy.