Baidu has launched a new project named "Apollo", which will provide an open, complete, and secure software platform to its cooperation partners in the automobile industry and the self-driving sector.

This project aims to help those partners quickly establish a set of their own automatic driving systems based on their vehicle and hardware system.

Baidu Group's president and chief operating officer Lu Qi said that artificial intelligence technologies have huge potential in promoting the development of the society and smart car is one of the largest opportunities. With the launch of the Apollo project, Baidu will open its strongest, most mature, and most secure automatic driving technologies to the industry.

Baidu's Apollo project will provide a full set of software, hardware, and service solutions, covering vehicle platform, hardware platform, software platform, and cloud data services. Baidu will open its code to give partners complete development and testing tools.

At the same time, the company will select partners with the best synergies and compatibility in the vehicle and sensor sectors to form a collaborative alliance and recommend them to other participants of this project to further lower the research and development threshold for automatic driving cars.