Didi Chuxing President Jean Liu speaks at the WSJ D Live technology conference in Laguna Beach, California, on Oct. 25, 2016. The market for Silicon Valley engineers with expertise in artificial intelligence and automated driving tech keeps getting tighter. Didi Chuxing, the ride-hailing giant backed by Apple that forced Uber to abandon its efforts to win over the Chinese market last year, just opened an R&D center in the self-driving car capital with a big "help wanted" sign in the window. Mountain View, California-based Didi Labs will focus on "AI-based security and intelligent driving technologies," the company said on March 8. It will be led by computer scientist Fengmin Gong, vice president of the Didi Research Institute and a co-founder of Palo Alto Networks.