Baidu and Samsung Harman cooperate to develop automotive AI solutions

April 21st, Harman, an auto parts manufacturer of Baidu and Samsung, announced on Thursday that the two companies will jointly develop vehicle-mounted artificial intelligence solutions for the Chinese automotive industry.

According to the agreement, the two parties will integrate Baidu's DuerOS-based voice assistant and speech recognition engine technology as well as Harman's connected car and cloud service platform, and develop Chinese and English automatic speech recognition and other features.

Bai Qi, chief operating officer of Baidu, stated that "the cooperation between Baidu and Harman will enable consumers to use natural voice control, interact with cars more safely and conveniently, and access non-vehicle information and services."

This is not the first cooperation between Baidu and Harman. In 2015, the two companies jointly announced CarLife, a cross-platform car networking service for the Chinese market.

CarLife was deployed in nearly 150 models of 60 automakers, including Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Shanghai GM, with more than 700,000 active users.

In addition to the automotive market, Baidu and Harman also plan to introduce audio solutions for smart speakers.

Earlier this week, Baidu announced that it had reached an agreement with Bosch, as well as map service providers Gold and NavInfo, to jointly develop the "high-precision maps" necessary for self-driving cars.

Baidu also announced this week that it will open its self-driving car platform Apollo, enabling automotive industry partners to develop their own systems based on Apollo. These tools support multiple functions such as obstacle detection, route planning, and vehicle control.

Earlier this year, Baidu and Beijing Automotive announced that they will jointly launch vehicles equipped with Baidu's telematics system.