China's Didi Chuxing announced plans to establish its Didi American research institute to attract top scientific research talents for the development in two core sectors: big data security and smart driving.
Located in Mountain View, California, Didi's American research institute will focus on the technical development and application of cloud security, deep learning, human-computer interaction, computer vision and imaging, and smart driving. It will cooperate with Didi's research network to turn research results into productive forces to promote Didi's international strategy.
This new American research institute will be led by Gong Fengmin, vice director of Didi research institute. So far, the American research institute has recruited dozens of data engineers and research staff, including former Uber security expert Charlie Miller. At the same time, Didi is expected to significantly enlarge its American research team in 2017.
According to Zhang Bo, chief technology officer of Didi Chuxing, over the next ten years, Didi will use the world's richest transportation data to realize innovative breakthroughs on many levels. The company will change the ownership and usage relations between humans and vehicles; it will lead the application of new energy cars and new smart driving security technologies; and it will apply big data analyses to the optimization of traffic infrastructures.
Didi Chuxing's planned investment in its American venture have not yet been released.