We already knew that Microsoft Azure Cloud was a member of the alliance of Baidu's Apollo self-driving platform, but now Microsoft has revealed more details about what it would provide to the interprofessional partnership. Basically, Microsoft will offer cloud infrastructure services via Azure for customers in markets outside of China looking to adopt Apollo, which Baidu called the "Android industry's stand-alone driving" open.
Apollo, which Baidu knowingly named after the original lunar landing program, as it considers a similar scale of interprofessional cooperation necessary to bring autonomous driving to the market, is intended to offer cloud services, software And reference vehicles, sensors and computer hardware. The alliance includes a number of top industry players, including TomTom, Bosh, Continental, Nvidia and Uber mapping company Grab, in addition to Microsoft.
Microsoft has also been aggressive in nurturing partnerships in the stand-alone, automotive space in the cloud industry - working with BMW, Ford, Renault-Nissan, Toyota and Volvo on a range of different projects, and its work With Baidu and Apollo could add a host of new OEM partners to this list, depending on the adoption.
Apollo is intended to be released to developers and automakers through staged versions, including access to self-driving technology for restricted and restricted areas by the end of the month. Baidu said it hopes to deploy a platform that can fully manage autonomous driving in urban and road environments by the end of 2020, which is a very ambitious target for the nascent project but in line with the Expectations Reported for Autonomous Driving Launches Major Automobile Manufacturers .
