Baidu trains its robotaxis in a fake world — 100,000 km a day

Baidu launched Apollo World on November 3, an AI system that simulates real-world environments for training robotaxis and predicts how those environments evolve, as automakers race to cut the cost of developing self-driving vehicles.

The system can generate up to 100,000 kilometres of simulated driving a day — roughly three years of real-world testing by a vehicle with a safety driver — producing camera and lidar streams that self-driving systems can sense and navigate directly.

Baidu says Apollo World is already training its Apollo Go fleet for global operation; Apollo Go is China's largest robotaxi operator, and Morgan Stanley has estimated China's robotaxi fleet could grow to 1 million vehicles by 2035.