The autonomous driving space might be seeing the marriage of two titans. Volkswagen is in talks with Huawei to acquire the latter's nascent autonomous driving unit for billions of euros, Germany's Manager Magazin reported on Thursday. Huawei said it has no immediate comment when contacted by TechCrunch. VW China said it has no comment. The potential merger will be a powerful one.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Lu Qi, who oversaw Baidu Inc's (BIDU.O) shift to artificial intelligence (AI) after a damaging ad scandal in 2016, is stepping down as chief operating officer, China's biggest search engine said on Friday. Lu, a former Microsoft executive and AI expert who joined Baidu in late 2016, is currently responsible for day-to-day operations in its AI unit, which has become the company's core focus in the past year. He will remain vice chairman of Baidu and Vice President Wang Haifeng will now oversee the company's AI projects, Baidu said in a social media posting, adding Lu was stepping back for "personal and family reasons". Baidu's shares tumbled in New York on the news, ending 9.5 percent down on Friday. Lu is viewed as a top figure in the global AI industry, and joined Baidu at a time when the company was rebuilding investor confidence after a medical scandal linked to its search business led to strict new regulations that gutted the firm's ad revenue.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Lu Qi, who oversaw Baidu Inc's (BIDU.O) shift to artificial intelligence (AI) after a damaging ad scandal in 2016, is stepping down as chief operating officer, China's biggest search engine said on Friday. Lu, a former Microsoft executive and AI expert who joined Baidu in late 2016, is currently responsible for day-to-day operations in its AI unit, which has become the company's core focus in the past year. He will remain vice chairman of Baidu and Vice President Wang Haifeng will now oversee the company's AI projects, Baidu said in a social media posting, adding Lu was stepping back for "personal and family reasons." Lu is viewed as a top figure in the global AI industry, and joined Baidu at a time when the company was rebuilding investor confidence after a medical scandal linked to its search business led to strict new regulations that gutted the firm's ad revenue. Baidu, which saw revenue growth stall for several quarters following the new rules, has since regained momentum after closing or selling loss-making units and funneling resources into its AI and autonomous driving units.

Uber plans to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo, marking the transition of the U.S. firm from an app used to summon a taxi to the owner and operator of a fleet of cars. The non-binding framework deal could offer San Francisco-based Uber a way to overcome setbacks at its autonomous driving division in Silicon Valley's race to perfect self-driving systems. Combining Volvo's cars with Uber's self-driving system builds on their nearly three-year relationship and comes as Uber's autonomous driving unit has been hit by a lawsuit over trade secrets and the departure of top talent. Uber plans to buy up to 24,000 self-driving cars from Volvo, marking the transition of the U.S. firm from an app used to summon a taxi to the owner and operator of a fleet of cars. Automakers, ride-hailing firms and tech startups have been forging loose alliances in an effort to advance self-driving technology and claim a piece of what is expected to be a multi-billion-dollar business.

Baidu launched a Silicon Valley office to house its Autonomous Driving Unit. The company revealed it aims to hire at least 100 researchers and engineers for the site. On March 15, Baidu's Chief Scientist Andrew Ng revealed that China's leading search engine company is looking into expanding its autonomous car business -- just like Google -- and that it has set its sights on testing its self-driving car in the United States. True to its word, the Chinese company announced on April 22 that it has already formed a self-driving car research, development and testing team, launching its R&D Center in Silicon Valley, very close to Google's office. "Baidu is fully committed to making self-driving cars a reality [...] Baidu's Silicon Valley car team will play a significant role in building the car of the future," Jing Wang said, Baidu's senior vice president and general manager of the Autonomous Driving Unit (ADU).

China's Nasdaq-listed internet search engine giant Baidu Inc. said Friday it has formed a team in Silicon Valley dedicated to its self-driving car efforts. The announcement comes as Chinese officials rush to set up a road map for incorporating highway-ready, self-driving cars within three to five years. Baidu's Silicon Valley team will grow to more than 100 researchers and engineers, focused on research, development and testing, by the end of 2016, the company said in a statement Friday. The Beijing-headquartered firm is looking to work on areas "integral to self-driving car development, including planning, perception, control and systems." The team in Silicon Valley will be part of the company's newly created Autonomous Driving Unit.

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 22, 2016) - Baidu, Inc. (NASDAQ: BIDU), China's leading search engine, today announced it has formed a self-driving car team in Silicon Valley focused on research, development and testing. The team will be part of Baidu's newly-created Autonomous Driving Unit (ADU). Baidu plans to grow the team to over 100 researchers and engineers by the end of the year. The team will include machine learning researchers as well as hardware and software engineers across a variety of technical domains, from robotics and computer vision to onboard computers and sensors. Additionally, the company is looking for individuals with experience in the automotive industry.

Baidu, China's most popular search engine, like its US-based counterpart Google, is heavily investing in autonomous driving technologies and today it officially announced the launch of a self-driving car R&D center in Silicon Valley, right in Google's backyard. The company expects its team will grow to over 100 researchers and engineers by the end of the year. The company already moved several of its staff from its newly-created Autonomous Driving Unit (ADU) to Sunnyvale and recently hired a Tesla Autopilot software engineer. Liang Heng, a PhD graduate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford,joined Tesla's Autopilot team last year after CEO Eon Musk called for "hardcore software engineers" to join the company's effort to make the next generation of Autopilot fully autonomous. Now he leaves the automaker only 5 months later to join Baidu's autonomous driving team as a'Software Architect'.