Waymo, the US driverless car firm, said it hopes to be operating a robotaxi service in London as soon as September this year. The UK government has said it plans to change regulations in the second half of 2026 to enable driverless taxis to operate in the city but has not given a specific date. Waymo said a pilot service will launch in April and Local Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood said: We're supporting Waymo and other operators through our passenger pilots, and pro-innovation regulations to make self-driving cars a reality on British roads. The firm, which is owned by Google-parent Alphabet, showed off a fleet of cars it bought to the UK at London's Transport Museum on Wednesday. Waymo's vehicles are currently being operated by a safety driver, mapping the streets.

Chinese robotaxis could be set to hit UK roads in 2026 as ride-sharing apps Uber and Lyft announce partnerships with Baidu to trial the tech. The two companies are hoping to obtain approval from regulators to test the autonomous vehicles in London. Baidu's Apollo Go driverless taxi service already operates in dozens of cities, mostly in China, and has accrued millions of rides without a human behind the wheel. Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said the news was another vote of confidence in our plans for self-driving vehicles - but many remain sceptical about their safety. We're planning for self-driving cars to carry passengers for the first time from spring, under our pilot scheme - harnessing this technology safely and responsibly to transform travel, Ms Alexander said in a post on X .

The race begins to make the world's best self-driving cars Tue 11 Nov 2025 09.27 ESTLast modified on Tue 11 Nov 2025 09.29 EST I'm your host, Blake Montgomery, writing to you from Barcelona, where my diet has transformed at least half my body into ham. Who will dominate the autonomous vehicles market? We are on the verge of the global arrival of self-driving cars. These companies are posturing in the press like male birds fighting for the same mate; the dance sets the stage for the global competition to come. The company has invested billions of dollars in Waymo in the past 15 years.

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.

Amid stiff competition, Baidu says it's making its AI chatbot free to use. Starting on April 1, ERNIE Bot will be available to users at no cost. Baidu says it will also issue refunds to users in some cases. The company cited reduced costs and tech improvements as reasons for making ERNIE Bot free across desktop and mobile. Moreover, Baidu plans to roll out an advanced search function on the same day, per Reuters.

The paper introduces EICopilot, an novel agent-based solution enhancing search and exploration of enterprise registration data within extensive online knowledge graphs like those detailing legal entities, registered capital, and major shareholders. Traditional methods necessitate text-based queries and manual subgraph explorations, often resulting in time-consuming processes. EICopilot, deployed as a chatbot via Baidu Enterprise Search, improves this landscape by utilizing Large Language Models (LLMs) to interpret natural language queries. This solution automatically generates and executes Gremlin scripts, providing efficient summaries of complex enterprise relationships. Distinct feature a data pre-processing pipeline that compiles and annotates representative queries into a vector database of examples for In-context learning (ICL), a comprehensive reasoning pipeline combining Chain-of-Thought with ICL to enhance Gremlin script generation for knowledge graph search and exploration, and a novel query masking strategy that improves intent recognition for heightened script accuracy. Empirical evaluations demonstrate the superior performance of EICopilot, including speed and accuracy, over baseline methods, with the \emph{Full Mask} variant achieving a syntax error rate reduction to as low as 10.00% and an execution correctness of up to 82.14%. These components collectively contribute to superior querying capabilities and summarization of intricate datasets, positioning EICopilot as a groundbreaking tool in the exploration and exploitation of large-scale knowledge graphs for enterprise information search.

The birth and rapid development of large language models (LLMs) have caused quite a stir in the field of literature. Once considered unattainable, AI's role in literary creation is increasingly becoming a reality. In genres such as poetry, jokes, and short stories, numerous AI tools have emerged, offering refreshing new perspectives. However, it's difficult to further improve the quality of these works. This is primarily because understanding and appreciating a good literary work involves a considerable threshold, such as knowledge of literary theory, aesthetic sensibility, interdisciplinary knowledge. Therefore, authoritative data in this area is quite lacking. Additionally, evaluating literary works is often complex and hard to fully quantify, which directly hinders the further development of AI creation. To address this issue, this paper attempts to explore the mysteries of literary texts from the perspective of LLMs, using ancient Chinese poetry as an example for experimentation. First, we collected a variety of ancient poems from different sources and had experts annotate a small portion of them. Then, we designed a range of comprehension metrics based on LLMs to evaluate all these poems. Finally, we analyzed the correlations and differences between various poem collections to identify literary patterns. Through our experiments, we observed a series of enlightening phenomena that provide technical support for the future development of high-level literary creation based on LLMs.

A driverless ride-hailing car in China hit a pedestrian, and people on social media are taking the carmaker's side, because the person was reportedly crossing against the light. The operator of the vehicle, Chinese tech giant Baidu, said in a statement to Chinese media that the car began moving when the light turned green and had minor contact with the pedestrian. The person was taken to a hospital where an examination found no obvious external injuries, Baidu said. The incident on Sunday in the city of Wuhan highlights the challenge that autonomous driving faces in complex situations, the Chinese financial news outlet Yicai said. It quoted an expert saying the technology may have limitations when dealing with unconventional behavior such as other vehicles or pedestrians that violate traffic laws.

Elon Musk will be pleased that his surprise jaunt to China on Sunday garnered many glowing headlines. The trip was undoubtedly equally a surprise to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had been scheduled to offer Musk the red carpet on a long-arranged visit. The billionaire blew off India at the last minute, citing "very heavy Tesla obligations." Indeed, Tesla has had a tumultuous couple of weeks, with federal regulator slap-downs, profits halving, and price-cut rollouts--yet, in a very public snub that Modi won't quickly forget, the company CEO made time for Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Tesla needs China more than China needs Tesla.

Elon Musk's visit to China has reportedly reaped immediate rewards with a deal for Tesla to use mapping data provided by web search company Baidu, a big step in introducing driver assistance technology in the world's largest car market. Musk made an unannounced visit to China over the weekend. The billionaire posted a picture of his meeting with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, on X, the social network he took over in 2022. Baidu, which dominates web search in China, will provide mapping and navigation functions to help Tesla operate its driver assistance technology, which it calls "full self-driving", or FSD, according to sources cited by Bloomberg News. Mapping services – crucial to driver assistance technologies – are strictly controlled by China's government.