https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/21/baidu-announces-1-5b-fund-to-back-self-driving-car-startups/

Baidu is putting some serious cash behind its self-driving car push after it announced a $1.5 billion fund that’s focused on backing autonomous driving tech companies.

The Chinese giant, best known for its internet search service and AI technology, has prioritized autonomous vehicles in a major way in recent years so this comes as little surprise. Baidu made its Apollo self-driving car platform freely available to the auto industry earlier this year. That quickly picked up partners and it currently claims around 70, including Hyundai, Bosch, Continental, Nvidia, Microsoft Cloud, Velodyne, TomTom, UCAR and Grab.