China-based e-commerce company Alibaba launched a RMB1bn ($160m) joint venture with China-based car manufacturer SAIC Motor yesterday that will focus on developing a connected car.
The two companies hope the car could be ready for market as early as 2016. A spokeswoman told Reuters the agreement is a 50-50 venture that will be opened up to other investors in future.
Alibaba will be responsible for providing cloud computing, digital entertainment, maps and financial data technology, and may use its own operating system, YunOS, to power the car’s functionality.
The company is currently increasing its efforts to get the operating system installed on tens of millions of smartphones.
The news comes after recent reports that China-based search engine provider Baidu is working on a self-driving car to be introduced later in 2015, following in the footsteps of its US-based counterpart Google.
Google expects to have self-driving cars consumer-ready by 2020, the same year Apple plans to bring its own electric car to market.