Volkswagen will invest €2.4 billion euros ($2.3 billion) to set up an autonomous driving joint venture with China's Horizon Robotics Inc. to strengthen the automaker's tech presence in its biggest market. The joint venture "will enable us to tailor our products and services even faster and more consistently to the needs of our Chinese customers," said Ralf Brandstaetter, who runs VW's China business. Teaming up with Horizon will help "drive the repositioning of our China business." VW is under pressure to improve its offering in China, its biggest market with roughly 40% of deliveries. Sales last year slid, outpacing an overall drop as the company struggled to keep up with local consumer tastes, particularly on digital offerings with many VW models exasperating drivers with frozen screens and complex functionality.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's GOOGL.O Google said on Wednesday it is opening an artificial intelligence (AI) research center in China to target the country's local talent, even as the U.S. search firm's products remain blocked in the country. Google said in a statement the research center is the first of its kind in Asia and will comprise a small team operating out of its existing office in Beijing. Chinese policy makers have voiced strong support for AI research and development in the country, but have imposed increasingly strict rules on foreign firms in the past year, including new censorship restrictions. Google's search engine is banned in the Chinese market along with its app store, email and cloud storage services. China's cyber regulators say restrictions on foreign media and internet platforms are designed to block influences that contravene stability and socialist ideas.

Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing raised more than $5.5 billion from investors, scoring the largest round of funding ever for a technology company to bankroll an expansion beyond China and into driver-less technology. Didi, which drove Uber Technologies Inc. out of China last year, is already one of the country's best-funded private companies: its backers range from powerful state agencies to global venture firms and WeChat-operator Tencent Holdings Ltd. The latest financing, which Didi disclosed in an emailed statement Friday, may propel forays into everything from artificial intelligence to auto-financing -- and potentially markets beyond its home territory. Didi, led by the 33-year-old Cheng Wei, didn't reveal the backers who joined this round. People familiar with the matter said this week that the investors would include SoftBank Group Corp., Silver Lake Kraftwerk, China Merchants Bank Co. and an arm of Bank of Communications Co.