百度在硅谷引领中国自驾驶技术

中国领先的互联网搜索公司百度（Baidu）宣布了第一批兼容其自动驾驶软件的汽车制造商，其中包括国内最大的汽车厂商之一奇瑞（Chery Automobile）。

合作关系的宣布地点可能会在北京，然而这却是他们在6,000英里之外的硅谷努力的结果。在硅谷，百度和其他超过30家中国公司正紧锣密鼓开发兼容联网自动驾驶汽车的软件和硬件，并为它们筹集资金。

他们的目标是让这些汽车行驶在中国的道路上，这是全球最大的汽车市场。而他们希望搭载同样技术的中国汽车能远销海外，占领美国市场。

在这个过程中，被看作中国谷歌（Google）的百度扮演了核心角色。与谷歌母公司Alphabet的自动驾驶部门Waymo类似，百度利用绘图和人工智能领域的技术，设计了实现汽车自动驾驶所必须的软件和系统。

这个项目在今年4月揭晓，被命名为阿波罗（Apollo），与美国国家航空和宇宙航行局（NASA）的登月项目同名，足见百度的野心之大，亦可见项目的难度之高。

百度是否能在科技界竞争最激烈的领域取得成功，目前远未可知。今年早些时候，首席科学家吴恩达和自动驾驶事业部的总经理王劲都离开了百度去创立自己的新公司。

百度的技术中心，就在加利福尼亚州森尼维耳的NASA艾姆斯研究中心（Ames Research Center）附近。在这里，硅谷自动驾驶团队的新任主管王京傲接受了采访。他表示：“人才的竞争十分激烈，从来没有够用的时候。”

相比位于五英里之外山景城谷歌总部Googleplex的Waymo，百度至少有一项优势。如今百度已经在美国留下了足迹，而Alphabet在中国已经没有了根据地。2010年，谷歌不愿屈服于中国政府的互联网审查制度，关闭了在中国的网站。

硅谷的龙

2011年，百度成为了第一批在硅谷建立基地，以接触全球最大的科技人才库的新生代中国公司之一。从那以后，公司成为了硅谷近30家中国公司投资、并购与合作的中坚力量。

如今在网上，已经可以找到硅谷的一些中国科技公司的关系图。

六年来，百度组建了200人的强大技术团队，他们来自美国的一流大学，或是谷歌、Facebook和微软（Microsoft）等科技和汽车行业经验丰富的领导者。

通过收购视觉和机器人技术初创公司xPerception，与芯片制造商英伟达（Nvidia）密切合作，并对激光雷达技术（这项光传感技术是让自动驾驶汽车“看见”自己行驶方向的关键）的行家Velodyne等其他硅谷公司进行投资，百度增强了自己的科技实力。

腾讯控股有限公司（Tencent Holdings Ltd）也紧随其后。这是中国最大的互联网公司。通过并购，他们也进入了硅谷，其中包括今年早些时候斥资18亿美元投资特斯拉（Tesla Inc）。这家位于加利福尼亚的电动汽车厂商也在研发自动驾驶技术。

百度和腾讯合伙投资了Nio，这家初创公司计划在2020年让自动驾驶的电动汽车开上美国和中国的马路，其估值已经达到28亿美元。

Nio在上海和硅谷的圣何塞都设有总部。不久以前，另外一家中国公司资助的自动驾驶初创公司Faraday Future，也拥有了来自姊妹公司LeEco美国办事处的小型工程师团队。

帕洛阿尔托的风险投资者埃万耶洛斯·西莫迪斯表示，百度和其他中国投资者对硅谷的投资，使得Zoox等汽车公司的价值水涨船高。

人工智能的支点

来自中国的新公司如今已经遍布旧金山湾区。硅谷的发源地帕洛阿尔托已经成为了GSR Ventures和ZhenFund等中国风投公司的金融枢纽。

在临近的门洛帕克，美国风投界的中心，中国最大的汽车厂商上海汽车工业公司（Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp）建立了技术中心，其中有这家国有公司的投资部门。中国资助的自动驾驶电动汽车初创公司Lucid Motors也在门洛帕克建立了办公室。

投资了自动驾驶汽车初创公司的硅谷风投公司Hemi Ventures的任事股东艾米·顾表示：“现在不是一家公司，而是整个行业都在努力让自动驾驶变成现实。这不只是关于花钱，而在于开发消费者愿意买单的真正产品。”

如果真的能够实现的话，百度究竟需要多少时间才能生产这样的产品，目前还不得而知。

百度正在努力应对核心广告业务萎缩的状况，中国政府对医疗广告的抑制也让公司受损，一些合资的企业也不太成功。在前微软副总裁陆奇的领导下，百度如今试图将重心转向人工智能。而自动驾驶就是人工智能的关键应用之一。

百度并未说明打算如何从开源的阿波罗计划上获取利润，不过公司表示将把基于云的数据服务整合到平台中，就像谷歌对无处不在的安卓智能手机操作系统所做的一样。

在7月5日举办的开发者大会上，百度发布了一些用于城市街道驾驶的阿波罗技术，并宣布第一批合作的制造商。

西莫迪斯表示，这可能是这项技术的重心从加利福尼亚移向中国的转折点。

他说：“公司可能无法彻底摆脱对于硅谷人才的依赖，但随着中国人也开始掌握能力，这种依赖会持续减少。” （财富中文网）

译者：严匡正

Baidu, China's leading Internet search company, is set to announce the first vehicle manufacturing partners for its self-driving software next week, including Chery Automobile, one of the country's biggest carmakers, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The partnerships may be announced in Beijing, but they are the result of work that is happening 6,000 miles away in Silicon Valley, where Baidu and more than 30 other Chinese companies are busy developing and funding software and hardware to power internet-connected, autonomous vehicles.

The goal is to get those vehicles on the roads in China, the world's biggest auto market. The hope is that the same technology, embedded in exported Chinese vehicles, can then conquer the United States.

Baidu, known as China's Google, is playing a central role in that effort. Like Waymo, the self-driving arm of Google parent Alphabet, Baidu is using what it has learned in mapping and artificial intelligence to design the software and systems necessary to make self-driving cars a reality.

Its project, unveiled in April, is named Apollo after NASA's moon-landing program. The name indicates the scale of Baidu's ambition, but also the difficulty of the project.

It is by no means clear that it will succeed in one of the most competitive parts of the technology industry. Chief scientist Andrew Ng and self-driving unit manager Jing Wang left earlier this year to form their own startups.

"The competition for talent is keen," Jingao Wang, the new head of Baidu's Silicon Valley self-driving team, said in an interview at its technology center in the shadow of NASA's Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale, California. "There is never enough."

Baidu has at least one advantage over Waymo, based just five miles away at the sprawling Googleplex in Mountain View. It now has a presence in the United States, whereas Alphabet has no footprint in China, after Google shuttered its website there in 2010 rather than bow to the government's internet censorship.

SILICON VALLEY DRAGONS

In 2011, Baidu was one of the first of the new generation of Chinese companies to set up a base in Silicon Valley, in order to tap the world's deepest tech talent pool. Since then, it has made itself the center of a "China network" of almost three dozen firms there, through investments, acquisitions and partnerships.

A graphic on the links between some of China's tech firms in Silicon Valley tech firms is available online.

Over six years, Baidu has assembled a formidable 200-person tech team, recruiting from top U.S. universities and established leaders in the auto and tech industry, including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

It has expanded its technical capability through the acquisition of vision and robotics startup xPerception, a close partnership with chipmaker Nvidia, and investments in other Silicon Valley firms such as Velodyne, an expert in lidar, the light-sensing technology key to letting self-driving cars "see" where they are going.

Baidu was followed by Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's largest internet company, which has bought its way into Silicon Valley, including a $1.8-billion investment earlier this year in Tesla Inc, the California electric car maker which is also working on self-driving technology.

Baidu and Tencent have teamed up to bankroll Nio, a startup aiming to put autonomous electric vehicles on American and Chinese roads by 2020, which is now valued at $2.8 billion.

Nio has its main offices in Shanghai and San Jose in Silicon Valley. Not far away, another Chinese-funded self-driving startup, Faraday Future, has a small team of engineers working from the U.S. office of sister company LeEco.

The money that Baidu and other Chinese investors have invested in Silicon Valley has driven up the value of mobility startups such as Zoox, said Evangelos Simoudis, a Palo Alto venture investor.

PIVOT TO AI

Chinese newcomers have now spread across the San Francisco Bay Area. Palo Alto, the birthplace of Silicon Valley, has emerged as a financial hub for China-connected venture capital firms such as GSR Ventures and ZhenFund.

In neighboring Menlo Park, the center of U.S. venture capital, China's largest automaker Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp has a tech center that houses the state-owned company's investment arm. China-backed Lucid Motors, a self-driving electric vehicle startup, also makes its home in Menlo Park.

"It takes the whole industry to make self-driving become real, instead of one company," said Amy Gu, managing partner of Hemi Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that invests in autonomous vehicle startups. "It is not only about spending money, but about being able to come up with real products for which customers will pay."

It is not clear how quickly—if at all—Baidu will get to the point of producing such a product.

The company is struggling with a decline in its core advertising business, hurt by government curbs on medical ads in China and some unsuccessful side ventures. It is now looking to shift its focus to artificial intelligence under the guidance of Qi Lu, a former Microsoft executive. Self-driving is a key application of that.

Baidu has not specified how it intends to make money from the open-source Apollo project, but it has said it will integrate cloud-based data services into the platform, much as Google has done with its ubiquitous Android smartphone operating system.

The company may fill in some details at a developer conference it has scheduled for July 5 in Beijing, when it releases some Apollo technology for cars driving on urban streets and will announce its first manufacturing partners.

That could be a turning point when the technology focus will begin to shift from California to China, according to Simoudis.

"The dependence on Silicon Valley talent may not be eliminated, but it will continue to diminish as the Chinese build their own capabilities," he said.