At the Baidu World Conference today in Beijing, Baidu CEO Robin Li together with NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced a partnership to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation of a cloud-to-car autonomous car platform for local Chinese and global car makers. The partnership combines Baidu’s cloud platform and mapping technology with NVIDIA’s self-driving computing platform to develop solutions for HD maps, Level 3 autonomous vehicle control and automated parking.

"We’re going to bring together the technical capabilities and the expertise in AI and the scale of two world-class AI companies to build the self-driving car architecture from end-to-end, from top-to-bottom, from the cloud to the car," Jen-Hsun said.

"We can start applying these capabilities to solve the grand challenges of AI, one of which is intelligent machines. One of the intelligent machines we would like to build in the future is the self-driving car," Jen-Hsun said.

That means making driving safer, reducing the number of traffic fatalities, while making transportation accessible to all - including the disabled, elderly, and children.

Developing a fully autonomous car is an end-to-end systems problem — from the in-car supercomputer, to AI algorithms, to an always-updated 3D map in the cloud, Jen-Hsun explained.

In the Baidu World expo, Nvidia demonstrated DRIVE PX 2— the first in-car artificial intelligence supercomputer development platform - and its DriveWorks software to showcase what goes on inside the brain of the autonomous car.

The solution Nvidia is creating with Baidu will be available to local Chinese automakers as well as global brands.