Chinese search giant Baidu has formed a team dedicated to its self-driving car efforts in Silicon Valley, taking its autonomous car ambitions to Google’s home turf. The team, which Baidu announced in a press release, will grow to more than 100 researchers and engineers by the end of 2016. It’s a major investment for the company, and shows how serious Baidu is about autonomous cars.
The team (which will be part of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Unit) will be called ADU-US, and will work on everything from planning, perception, control, and systems. The company is also looking to make hires from the automotive industry. Baidu plans to make incremental progress with its self-driving cars, starting with small “autonomy-enabled” regions and progressing from there. Its cars will be “clearly recognizable,” much like Google’s current self-driving fleet.