中國領先的互聯網搜索公司百度（Baidu）宣布了第一批兼容其自動駕駛軟件的汽車制造商，其中包括國內最大的汽車廠商之一奇瑞（Chery Automobile）。

合作關系的宣布地點可能會在北京，然而這卻是他們在6,000英里之外的硅谷努力的結果。在硅谷，百度和其他超過30家中國公司正緊鑼密鼓開發兼容聯網自動駕駛汽車的軟件和硬件，并為它們籌集資金。

他們的目標是讓這些汽車行駛在中國的道路上，這是全球最大的汽車市場。而他們希望搭載同樣技術的中國汽車能遠銷海外，占領美國市場。

在這個過程中，被看作中國谷歌（Google）的百度扮演了核心角色。與谷歌母公司Alphabet的自動駕駛部門Waymo類似，百度利用繪圖和人工智能領域的技術，設計了實現汽車自動駕駛所必須的軟件和系統。

這個項目在今年4月揭曉，被命名為阿波羅（Apollo），與美國國家航空和宇宙航行局（NASA）的登月項目同名，足見百度的野心之大，亦可見項目的難度之高。

百度是否能在科技界競爭最激烈的領域取得成功，目前遠未可知。今年早些時候，首席科學家吳恩達和自動駕駛事業部的總經理王勁都離開了百度去創立自己的新公司。

百度的技術中心，就在加利福尼亞州森尼維耳的NASA艾姆斯研究中心（Ames Research Center）附近。在這里，硅谷自動駕駛團隊的新任主管王京傲接受了采訪。他表示：“人才的競爭十分激烈，從來沒有夠用的時候。”

相比位于五英里之外山景城谷歌總部Googleplex的Waymo，百度至少有一項優勢。如今百度已經在美國留下了足跡，而Alphabet在中國已經沒有了根據地。2010年，谷歌不愿屈服于中國政府的互聯網審查制度，關閉了在中國的網站。

硅谷的龍

2011年，百度成為了第一批在硅谷建立基地，以接觸全球最大的科技人才庫的新生代中國公司之一。從那以后，公司成為了硅谷近30家中國公司投資、并購與合作的中堅力量。

如今在網上，已經可以找到硅谷的一些中國科技公司的關系圖。

六年來，百度組建了200人的強大技術團隊，他們來自美國的一流大學，或是谷歌、Facebook和微軟（Microsoft）等科技和汽車行業經驗豐富的領導者。

通過收購視覺和機器人技術初創公司xPerception，與芯片制造商英偉達（Nvidia）密切合作，并對激光雷達技術（這項光傳感技術是讓自動駕駛汽車“看見”自己行駛方向的關鍵）的行家Velodyne等其他硅谷公司進行投資，百度增強了自己的科技實力。

騰訊控股有限公司（Tencent Holdings Ltd）也緊隨其后。這是中國最大的互聯網公司。通過并購，他們也進入了硅谷，其中包括今年早些時候斥資18億美元投資特斯拉（Tesla Inc）。這家位于加利福尼亞的電動汽車廠商也在研發自動駕駛技術。

百度和騰訊合伙投資了Nio，這家初創公司計劃在2020年讓自動駕駛的電動汽車開上美國和中國的馬路，其估值已經達到28億美元。

Nio在上海和硅谷的圣何塞都設有總部。不久以前，另外一家中國公司資助的自動駕駛初創公司Faraday Future，也擁有了來自姊妹公司LeEco美國辦事處的小型工程師團隊。

帕洛阿爾托的風險投資者埃萬耶洛斯·西莫迪斯表示，百度和其他中國投資者對硅谷的投資，使得Zoox等汽車公司的價值水漲船高。

人工智能的支點

來自中國的新公司如今已經遍布舊金山灣區。硅谷的發源地帕洛阿爾托已經成為了GSR Ventures和ZhenFund等中國風投公司的金融樞紐。

在臨近的門洛帕克，美國風投界的中心，中國最大的汽車廠商上海汽車工業公司（Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp）建立了技術中心，其中有這家國有公司的投資部門。中國資助的自動駕駛電動汽車初創公司Lucid Motors也在門洛帕克建立了辦公室。

投資了自動駕駛汽車初創公司的硅谷風投公司Hemi Ventures的任事股東艾米·顧表示：“現在不是一家公司，而是整個行業都在努力讓自動駕駛變成現實。這不只是關于花錢，而在于開發消費者愿意買單的真正產品。”

如果真的能夠實現的話，百度究竟需要多少時間才能生產這樣的產品，目前還不得而知。

百度正在努力應對核心廣告業務萎縮的狀況，中國政府對醫療廣告的抑制也讓公司受損，一些合資的企業也不太成功。在前微軟副總裁陸奇的領導下，百度如今試圖將重心轉向人工智能。而自動駕駛就是人工智能的關鍵應用之一。

百度并未說明打算如何從開源的阿波羅計劃上獲取利潤，不過公司表示將把基于云的數據服務整合到平臺中，就像谷歌對無處不在的安卓智能手機操作系統所做的一樣。

在7月5日舉辦的開發者大會上，百度發布了一些用于城市街道駕駛的阿波羅技術，并宣布第一批合作的制造商。

西莫迪斯表示，這可能是這項技術的重心從加利福尼亞移向中國的轉折點。

他說：“公司可能無法徹底擺脫對于硅谷人才的依賴，但隨著中國人也開始掌握能力，這種依賴會持續減少。” （財富中文網）

譯者：嚴匡正

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.