CATL and Chinese search engine and autonomous driving giant Baidu have entered into a partnership to collaborate in areas including the joint creation of autonomous vehicles. The companies recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement at CATL’s headquarters in Ningde, Fujian province, which was witnessed by Baidu founder, chairman and CEO Robin Li and CATL chairman and CEO Robin Zeng, according to an announcement from the battery maker. Baidu’s vice president, Shi Qinghua, and CATL’s vice president of domestic passenger car product lines, Liu Changyan, signed on behalf of their respective companies. CATL and Baidu will collaborate around the areas of unmanned driving, digitalization, and intelligence to promote the development of driverless mobility services, as well as the application of AI in manufacturing, according to the announcement. Specifically, the two companies will explore the use of CATL’s power batteries, battery swap products and services, and skateboard chassis in driverless vehicles. The two will work together to explore and build competitive driverless vehicle products and innovative business models to provide users with more convenient mobility services, CATL said. Baidu, on the other hand, will use its AI capabilities to support CATL’s digitalization from the chip, platform and application levels, according to the announcement.

Full report : China’s Baidu, CATL to jointly develop ‘competitive’ driverless vehicles.