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Shares of China’s Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Uber (NYSE:UBER) were propped up in Tuesday’s premarket after the two announced a partnership to accelerate the deployment of autonomous vehicles using the Uber (NYSE:UBER) platform.
With initial plans to launch in Asia (excluding China) and the Middle East later this year, riders will be able to use the Uber (NYSE:UBER) ridesharing platform to request an autonomous vehicle from Baidu’s (NASDAQ:BIDU) Apollo Go fleet.
Apollo Go currently deploys more than 1,000 fully driverless vehicles globally over 15 cities including Dubai and Abu Dhabi, surpassing 11 million rides as of May.
Uber’s partnership with Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) augments the company’s AV ambitions with similar collaborations including with Waymo (GOOG) in Austin and Atlanta, as well as with Volkswagen (VWAGY, VLKAF, VWAPY) to test and deploy robotaxis in Los Angeles next year.
“As the largest on-demand mobility and delivery platform in the world, alongside our deep expertise in marketplace management, fleet utilization, and local operations—we’re uniquely positioned to help AV hardware and software developers deploy and scale their technology globally. And together, we’ll continue to move the world forward with autonomous solutions that work for us all,” the company said in a statement on its website.
The news didn’t move the needle for Lyft (LYFT) or Waymo (GOOG) but briefly shook Tesla (TSLA) shares by -0.5% before recovering.
Uber (UBER) shares are up 1.4% and Baidu (BIDU) by 5% before the open.