According to reports in foreign media, China's Baidu is cooperating with Toyota and Geely to promote autopilot and artificial intelligence technology development.

Those companies will work together to bring an open-source autopilot automobile technology platform to the industry.

By cooperating with Apollo, the open-source autopilot automobile project developed by Baidu, Toyota hopes to realize certain functions on its e-Palette autopilot bus, which is currently undergoing development. Toyota selected Apollo's Minibus edition, but the cooperation between the two companies will not be limited to it. Toyota also hopes to integrate Apollo's technologies into its future autopilot cars.

Meanwhile, Geely also decided to cooperate with Baidu. The cooperation between Geely and Baidu will focus on artificial intelligence, instead of autopilot hardware.

So far, Apollo has formed partnerships with dozens of companies, including Chinese domestic enterprises and well-known international brands like Honda, BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, Intel, and Nvidia.

Baidu's Apollo project was launched in 2017 and it has been upgraded to the fifth edition. Its goal is to realize full autopilot by 2021.