Microsoft's Nadella Is Building An AI Empire --- After OpenAI deal, the CEO spreads his bets in an attempt to dominate

 

"Chief Executive Satya Nadella bet the future of Microsoft on the potential of artificial intelligence when he forged a groundbreaking partnership with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.

But Nadella is not content to simply rely on OpenAI to dominate in this new era. In recent months, he's been spreading his bets, turning the world's biggest company into the world's most aggressive amasser of AI talent, tools and technology. He has hunted down new partners around the globe and invested in a range of AI startups, including pouring $1.5 billion into an Abu Dhabi-based firm in April.

Nadella has also begun building what amounts to an in-house OpenAI competitor inside Microsoft -- potentially putting it on a collision course with its most important partner.

To lead Microsoft's AI efforts, he recruited Mustafa Suleyman, a longtime rival of OpenAI's co-founder, Sam Altman. Suleyman, who helped launch DeepMind, a pioneering AI research firm, and went on to co-found Inflection AI, an AI startup, has brought most of his team from Inflection with him to Microsoft.

The new employees have led the process to train their own artificial-intelligence model, built on technology developed at Inflection and designed to be on par with the OpenAI technology Microsoft depends on today. A person familiar with the matter said that some future Microsoft AI products could be switched from OpenAI technology to the model being developed by Suleyman's team.

Nadella's approach to AI is emblematic of his decade at the helm, during which he has repeatedly reinvented big parts of Microsoft, picking new partners and retooling the tech company. He has been able to spot when one-time company strengths became vulnerabilities and upend even his own strategies.

Nadella's moves have helped Microsoft leapfrog others -- most notably the longtime AI front-runner Google -- to release AI chatbots and workplace tools expected to change how people think and work. The question is whether these tactics will be enough to keep Microsoft ahead of the pack in artificial intelligence.

Google has dramatically overhauled its AI organization and put out products that rival those made by the OpenAI-Microsoft consortium, including an AI feature atop its dominant search engine. Meta Platforms has been investing billions into a powerful AI language model, Llama, that it is releasing for free under an open source license. Amazon has invested $4 billion in Anthropic, which it hosts on the largest cloud computing platform in the world.

This week, Apple announced it was integrating OpenAI's tech into its mobile operating system, further shaking up the competitive landscape for AI dominance.

Microsoft's rising status has made it a target for regulators and competitors. The Federal Trade Commission recently launched an investigation into whether Microsoft's Inflection deal was structured to avoid government antitrust review. That came on top of another FTC probe launched in January of other artificial-intelligence deals, including Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI.

Companies including the New York Times are suing Microsoft and OpenAI, alleging that they illegally trained their software on the media companies' content.

And despite a soaring stock price, company morale has struggled as outsiders have been brought in to reshape aspects of its technology.

Mikhail Parakhin, the previous head of Microsoft's Bing and advertising businesses, plans to leave the company after initially being assigned to report to Suleyman, according to people familiar with the matter. Saurabh Tiwary, who oversaw the team of AI engineers responsible for integrating OpenAI's tech into Bing, has already left for Google.

Microsoft said its retention rates are high and that some bumpiness is to be expected when companies make organizational changes.

While he has been trying to make Microsoft move more like a startup, Nadella has been the ultimate company lifer. The 56-year-old from Hyderabad, India, worked his way up through its Bing search and cloud infrastructure businesses over the last 32 years.

He was a surprise pick as CEO, taking over after years under Steve Ballmer when the company seemed stuck. It had grown bloated -- expanding costly divisions like hardware and Xbox -- and missed tech trends, such as the emergence of mobile phones. In the 14 years under Ballmer, Microsoft's share price fell more than 30%.

When Nadella took over in 2014, Microsoft was mired in infighting among siloed groups, current and former employees say. Projects were frequently divided across separate divisions with multiple leaders. Teams often didn't communicate with each other and fought for company resources.

Nadella pushed for more internal cooperation with fewer centers of power. He also embraced other tech giants more than any of his predecessors.

Among his first public appearances as CEO was a press briefing, where he took the stage to debut Microsoft Office for the iPad and iPhone. For years, the company had been dismissive of Apple's mobile devices, preferring to build its own hardware than strike a partnership.

Nadella's first few years on the job were marked by big acquisitions, including LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion and GitHub in 2018 for $7.5 billion. He would go on to do more than 300 deals worth over $170 billion in total.

These acquisitions infused the company with new blood. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman joined Microsoft's board of directors. LinkedIn's head of engineering, Kevin Scott, was given the newly created role of chief technology officer.

Scott fretted in a 2019 email to Nadella and then Chairman Bill Gates that the company's AI infrastructure was far behind Google's. And tools like Gmail autocomplete were getting "scarily good."

Microsoft's AI efforts had been spread among dozens of teams. The company had trouble recruiting top AI talent, said one Microsoft executive. Candidates would admit they were meeting with Microsoft as practice before going to places they would rather work -- usually Google.

In 2018, Nadella met OpenAI's Altman at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. He was impressed with the startup's AI and thought it could expose Microsoft to more sophisticated tools.

When Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI, it was controversial. Even Gates was initially skeptical that Microsoft needed to invest so much in an outside company when it had its own AI.

As part of the deal, OpenAI said it would exclusively use Microsoft's Azure cloud and Microsoft promised to invest in the expensive chips needed to meet OpenAI's voracious demand.

When Nadella saw an early demo of a chatbot built into Microsoft's Bing search engine, using OpenAI's technology, he asked his team what they needed to make it a hit product. Engineers told him that if millions of people were to use the chatbot, it would require every high-end chip the company had. That would mean taking the chips away from Microsoft's many other projects.

"What if I could get them for you?" he asked. Microsoft started purchasing enormous amounts of the GPU chips used for AI and invested another $10 billion in OpenAI in 2023.

The decision rippled through Microsoft. Many divisions felt the pinch to their budgets. The hardware group's leader, Panos Panay, decamped for Amazon to lead its Alexa division last fall. Ruben Caballero, the head of HoloLens, Microsoft's augmented reality project, has also left.

In February 2023, Nadella debuted the new Bing with a promise that with AI, Microsoft could finally make Google "dance." Microsoft integrated OpenAI's technology into its lineup, creating AI assistants that plug into its biggest software products.

The wisdom of Nadella's dependence on OpenAI came into doubt last fall after OpenAI's board ousted Altman in a coup. Nadella helped outmaneuver OpenAI's board by publicly offering to bring Altman to Microsoft. Altman was reinstated and Microsoft was given a nonvoting seat on the board.

The wrangling drew scrutiny from regulators, who began investigating the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI. Microsoft has repeatedly stated that it has only a non-controlling stake in the revenue produced by OpenAI's for-profit arm.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.

Altman's image as a controversial celebrity CEO has ruffled feathers. Some employees worried that the media storm after actress Scarlett Johansson claimed that OpenAI surreptitiously created an AI voice modeled on her reflected poorly on their efforts to make AI a more trusted technology.

Altman's status as the most important figure determining Microsoft's AI strategy is becoming less certain, thanks to the arrival of Suleyman and his team. Suleyman was a co-founder of DeepMind, the trailblazing AI company that was bought by Google and became the engine of its artificial intelligence efforts. Altman, along with Elon Musk, launched OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015 partly to ensure that the future of AI was not explored in secret and controlled by Google.

Suleyman left DeepMind to help start Inflection in 2022, joining forces with LinkedIn co-founder Hoffman, one of OpenAI's earliest investors and a board member. Hoffman resigned from OpenAI's board not long after he started Inflection.

Microsoft was already a fan of Inflection -- it had invested hundreds of millions -- when Nadella decided to recruit Suleyman. Nadella spent more than a month discussing a potential move with Suleyman, who was given the title of CEO of AI.

Microsoft insiders say the internal politics and the balance of power between the longtime rivals Suleyman and Altman have been confusing. The Inflection co-founder is set to be one of the main points of contact between Microsoft and OpenAI, said a person familiar with the matter.

Nadella has given Suleyman's team a large budget and wide latitude to operate. His group has absorbed other AI teams. Some Microsoft employees view the Inflection imports as a foreign body; these new employees communicate through Slack rather than the Microsoft-owned Teams tool.

Microsoft said that new and existing teams work together. The company has worked to quell speculation there is any friction with OpenAI. At Microsoft's annual developer conference in May, Altman was a special surprise guest.

Still, Nadella isn't slowing down. Microsoft's shares have surged more than 10-fold under his watch, lifting it above Apple for much of this year to make it the largest company in the world by market value. One of his top priorities today is rebranding the Azure cloud as the go-to place for startups.

In November, Nadella approved a program giving early-stage startups free access to some of Microsoft's computing clusters, a strategy meant to win their allegiance in the event they become the next breakout success.

The company has signed deals to bring startups such as Cohere and French startup Mistral AI onto Azure. Both companies are developing large language models that compete with OpenAI. In April, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based AI company G42, which will have the company run its software and services on Azure.

Arvind Jain, CEO of Glean, an enterprise AI company, has repeatedly met with Nadella during the Microsoft chief's recent startup charm offensive. Jain, like many other founders, didn't initially consider Microsoft a player in the startup game but today runs his AI assistant off Microsoft's cloud.

"Microsoft makes the effort to connect and reach out," Jain said. "When we started our team didn't consider Azure as an option. AI changed that."" [1]

1. Microsoft's Nadella Is Building An AI Empire --- After OpenAI deal, the CEO spreads his bets in an attempt to dominate. Dotan, Tom; Berber, Jin.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 14 June 2024: A.1.

Kinija išbando daugiau automobilių be vairuotojų, nei bet kuri kita šalis

„Didžiausias pasaulyje eksperimentas su automobiliais be vairuotojo vyksta judriose Uhano – miesto centrinėje Kinijos dalyje, kuriame gyvena 11 milijonų žmonių, 4,5 milijono automobilių, aštuonių eismo juostų greitkelių ir iškilusių tiltų per purvinus Jangdzės vandenis – gatvėse.

 

 Aplinkui zuja 500 taksi, vairuojamų kompiuteriais, dažnai be jokių atsarginių vairuotojų. Juos eksploatuojanti bendrovė, technologijų milžinė „Baidu“, praėjusį mėnesį pranešė, kad Uhane pridės dar 1000 vadinamųjų robotų taksi.

 

 Visoje Kinijoje 16 ar daugiau miestų leido įmonėms išbandyti be vairuotojo transporto priemones viešuosiuose keliuose, o mažiausiai 19 Kinijos automobilių gamintojų ir jų tiekėjų konkuruoja dėl pasaulinio lyderio šioje srityje. Jokia kita šalis nesielgia taip agresyviai.

 

 Vyriausybė teikia įmonėms didelę pagalbą. Be miestų, skiriančių robotų taksi bandymų keliuose zonas, cenzoriai riboja internetines diskusijas apie saugumo incidentus ir avarijas, kad suvaržytų visuomenės baimę dėl besiformuojančios technologijos.

 

 Automobilių konsultacinės įmonės „J.D. Power“ apklausos parodė, kad Kinijos vairuotojai labiau, nei amerikiečiai, pasitiki kompiuteriais, kurie valdo jų automobilius.

 

 „Manau, kad nereikia per daug jaudintis dėl saugumo – jis turi būti patvirtintas saugos“, – sakė Zhang Ming, nedidelės bakalėjos parduotuvės, esančios netoli Uhano Qingchuan paviljono, kur sustoja daugelis Baidu robotų taksi, savininkas.

 

 Kita priežastis, kodėl Kinija pirmauja, kuriant automobilius be vairuotojo, yra griežta ir nuolat griežtinama duomenų kontrolė. Kinijos įmonės įsteigė svarbias tyrimų įstaigas JAV ir Europoje ir išsiuntė rezultatus namo. Tačiau jokiems tyrimams Kinijoje neleidžiama išvykti iš šalies. Todėl užsienio automobilių gamintojams sunku panaudoti Kinijoje įgytas žinias automobiliams, kuriuos parduoda kitose šalyse.

 

 Tada yra saugumo problemos. Kinijai varant pirmyn, kitose šalyse įmonės ir reguliavimo institucijos tapo atsargesnės.

 

 „General Motors“ kruizinių taksi robotų tarnyba sustabdė savo paslaugas Jungtinėse Valstijose praėjusį rudenį, kai vienas iš jos automobilių San Franciske partrenkė ir nutempė pėsčiąją, kurią į roboto kelią partrenkė vairuotojas žmogus. Kalifornijos reguliavimo institucijos vėliau sustabdė bendrovės valstijos licenciją. Kruizas atnaujino ribotus bandymus Finikse.

 

 Waymo, buvęs Google savarankiškai vairuojančių automobilių padalinys, išbando daugiau, nei 200 savarankiškai vairuojančių automobilių Finikso priemiesčiuose ir San Franciske, taip pat beveik 50 Los Andžele ir Ostine, Teksase. Praėjusį mėnesį federalinės reguliavimo institucijos Waymo du kartus pranešė, kad peržiūri jo saugumą.

 

 „Ford“ ir „Volkswagen“ prieš dvejus metus uždarė bendrą robotų taksi įmonę „Argo AI“, tačiau abi bendrovės vis dar kuria pažangias pagalbines vairavimo sistemas.

 

 Praėjusį rudenį Japonija sustabdė be vairuotojo golfo vežimėlių, kurie važiuoja septynias mylias per valandą, bandymą, kai vienas iš jų paspaudė pastatyto dviračio pedalą. Niekas nenukentėjo. Bandymai buvo atnaujinti kovo mėnesį.

 

 Nė viena įmonė nepadarė didesnių lažybų dėl vairavimo kompiuteriu, nei Amerikos automobilių gamintojas „Tesla“. Tačiau 2014 m. pristatyta autopiloto sistema, skirta vairavimui greitkelyje, ir naujoji visiškai savarankiško vairavimo sistema, skirta važiavimui gatvėje ir greitkeliu, nėra tikrai be vairuotojų. Vairuotojai privalo žiūrėti į kelią ir laikyti rankas ant vairo.

 

 Elonas Muskas, „Tesla“ generalinis direktorius, balandžio 5 d. paskelbė „Tesla Robotaxi pristatymą 8/8“.

 

 Daugelis Kinijos elektromobilių gamintojų savo masinės gamybos automobiliuose pristato pažangias pagalbines vairavimo funkcijas.

 

 Birželio 4 d. Pekinas įgaliojo devynis Kinijos automobilių gamintojus, įskaitant Nio, BYD ir SAIC Motor, pradėti pažangių pagalbinių vairavimo sistemų, kurios geresnės, nei Teslos visiškai savarankiško vairavimo sistema, bandymus. Bent jau iš pradžių bandymai bus atliekami draudžiamose zonose, o ne viešuosiuose keliuose.

 

 „Baidu“ ir „Huawei“, elektronikos milžinė, tiekia dalį arba visas automatizuotas sistemas daugeliui Kinijos automobilių gamintojų. „Baidu“ taip pat turi bendrą įmonę su „Zhejiang Geely“, vadinamą „Jiyue“, kuri gamina taksi robotus.

 

 Kinijos automobilių inžinierių draugija prognozuoja, kad 2030 m. 20 procentų Kinijoje parduotų automobilių bus visiškai be vairuotojo, o dar 70 procentų turės pažangias pagalbinio vairavimo technologijas.

 

 Nuspėti būsimą automobilių be vairuotojo populiarumą Jungtinėse Valstijose sunku, nes tai priklauso nuo to, kaip greitai automobilių gamintojai pereis prie elektrinių transporto priemonių. Technologija be vairuotojo veikia daug geriau su akumuliatoriniais elektromobiliais, nei su benzininiais automobiliais ar daugeliu hibridinių benzininių ir elektra varomų automobilių. Elektriniai varikliai gali padidinti arba sumažinti galią su mažesniu vėlavimu ir tiksliau valdomu žingsniu.

 

 Kinijoje akumuliatoriniai elektromobiliai sudaro apie 25 procentus rinkos, palyginti su 7 procentais JAV.

 

 Kaip ir su daugeliu technologijų, įskaitant elektromobilių baterijas ir saulės baterijas, Kinijos įmonės be vairuotojo automobilius pradėjo kurti, studijuodamos daug Amerikos išradimų, bet tada šoktelėjo į priekį juos komercializuodamos. Per kelerius metus iki Covid-19 pandemijos daugiau, nei tuzinas Kinijos įmonių Kalifornijoje, daugiausia Silicio slėnyje, įkūrė autonominio vairavimo tyrimų centrus. Kai kurie, pavyzdžiui, Baidu, pasamdė šimtus programinės įrangos inžinierių. Jie gavo Kalifornijos transporto departamento leidimą išbandyti automobilius viešuosiuose keliuose.

 

 Šios bendrovės pandemijos metu didžiąją dalį jų tyrimų perkėlė į Kiniją, kai Pekinas uždarė šalies sienas, bet leido pagrindiniams tyrėjams grįžti. Jie ir toliau dirbo Kinijoje.

 

 „Jei Kaliforniją išimtume iš lygties, Kinijos autonominio vairavimo pramonė nė iš tolo nebūtų ten, kur yra dabar“, – sakė San Diego automobilių konsultantas Michaelas Dunne'as, kurio specializacija yra Kinija.

 

 Kinija buvo didelė „Teslos“ ir jos pažangių pagalbinių vairavimo technologijų, tokių, kaip „Autopilot“, rinka. Tačiau Pekinas dabar imasi griežtų veiksmų prieš bet kokį šių duomenų judėjimą iš Kinijos.

 

 P. Muskas lankėsi Pekine balandį, norėdamas gauti leidimą savo įmonei siūlyti visišką savarankišką vairavimą Kinijoje. Jis pasiekė sandorių, kad Kinijoje būtų saugomi visi, šalyje surinkti, duomenys ir gautų didelės raiškos Kinijos kelių žemėlapius pagal susitarimą su Baidu.

 

 Kinija neleidžia užsienio įmonėms turėti tiesioginės prieigos prie didelės raiškos žemėlapių, kurie yra labai svarbūs sistemoms be vairuotojų.

 

 Pagalbiniai vairavimo ar be vairuotojo automobiliai informacijai rinkti naudoja mažas kameras, sumontuotas jų išorėje, arba kai kuriais atvejais miniatiūrines lazerines sistemas. Didžiąją dalį šių duomenų apdoroja automobilio kompiuteriai, kurie priima sprendimus dėl vairavimo ir automobilio greičio.

 

 Nors dauguma automobilių kamerų ir lazerių duomenų nėra įkeliami į automobilių gamintojus, galimybė sekti žmones ir nustatyti jautrias vietas kelia nerimą saugumo ekspertams.

 

 Europa ir JAV vis dar leidžia gamintojams siųsti vairavimo duomenis į Kiniją, tačiau tai gali pasikeisti.

 

 Gina M. Raimondo, JAV prekybos sekretorė, praėjusį mėnesį sakė, kad JAV šį rudenį pasiūlys taisykles, reglamentuojančias automobilius, kurie elektroniniu būdu buvo susieti su Kinija. Europa taip pat pradėjo nagrinėti šį klausimą.

 

 Pasak Wang Yunpeng, Baidu išmaniojo vairavimo verslo grupės prezidento, „Baidu“ mano, kad Kinijos miestuose, tokiuose, kaip Uhanas, Baidu prieš „Teslą“ pirmauja nuo trijų iki penkerių metų. Šiose vietose naudodama visiškai be vairuotojo automobilius, Baidu sužinojo, kaip vyksta eismas, kvartalas po kvartalo, sakė jis praėjusį mėnesį kalboje.

 

 Nuo tvankių pakrantės uostų pietryčių Kinijoje, tokių, kaip Šendženas ir Fudžou, iki metropolių Vakarų Kinijos kalnuose, pavyzdžiui, Čongčingas ir Čengdu, Kinijos miestai skatina plačius eksperimentus." [1]

 

Kvailiausi šioje veikloje atrodo mano draugai Japonijoje. Didžiulis palengvėjimas tai žinoti. Google nesugeba išplėsti ir komercializuoti nieko, išskyrus paiešką. Išvis, pigių elektromobilių Vakaruose nėra, o Amerikoje ir niekada nebus, nes Kinijos importą uždraudė.

1. China Is Testing More Driverless Cars Than Any Other Country. Bradsher, Keith.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Jun 13, 2024

China Is Testing More Driverless Cars Than Any Other Country

"The world’s largest experiment in driverless cars is underway on the busy streets of Wuhan, a city in central China with 11 million people, 4.5 million cars, eight-lane expressways and towering bridges over the muddy waters of the Yangtze River.

A fleet of 500 taxis navigated by computers, often with no safety drivers in them for backup, buzz around. The company that operates them, the tech giant Baidu, said last month that it would add a further 1,000 of the so-called robot taxis in Wuhan.

Across China, 16 or more cities have allowed companies to test driverless vehicles on public roads, and at least 19 Chinese automakers and their suppliers are competing to establish global leadership in the field. No other country is moving as aggressively.

The government is providing the companies significant help. In addition to cities designating on-road testing areas for robot taxis, censors are limiting online discussion of safety incidents and crashes to restrain public fears about the nascent technology.

Surveys by J.D. Power, an automotive consulting firm, found that Chinese drivers are more willing than Americans to trust computers to guide their cars.

“I think there’s no need to worry too much about safety — it must have passed safety approval,” said Zhang Ming, the owner of a small grocery store near Wuhan’s Qingchuan Pavilion, where many Baidu robot taxis stop.

Another reason for China’s lead in the development of driverless cars is its strict and ever-tightening control of data. Chinese companies set up crucial research facilities in the United States and Europe and sent the results back home. But any research in China is not allowed to leave the country. As a result, it’s difficult for foreign carmakers to use what they learn in China for cars they sell in other countries.

Then there are the safety issues. As China charges ahead, companies and regulators elsewhere have become more cautious.

The Cruise robot taxi service of General Motors halted service in the United States last fall after one of its cars in San Francisco hit and dragged a pedestrian who had been knocked into its path by a human driver. California regulators later suspended the company’s state license. Cruise has resumed limited testing in Phoenix.

Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving car division, is testing more than 200 self-driving cars in the Phoenix suburbs and in San Francisco, as well as nearly 50 in Los Angeles and in Austin, Texas. Waymo was notified twice by federal regulators last month that they were reviewing its safety.

Ford and Volkswagen shut down their robot taxi joint venture, Argo AI, two years ago, but both companies are still developing advanced assisted driving systems.

Last fall, Japan suspended its test of driverless golf carts that travel seven miles per hour after one of them hit the pedal of a parked bicycle. No one was injured. The testing resumed in March.

No company has made bigger bets on computer-guided driving than the American automaker Tesla. But its Autopilot system for highway driving, which it introduced in 2014, and its new Full Self-Driving system, for street and highway driving, are not truly driverless. Motorists are required to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, announced on April 5 a “Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8.”

Many Chinese makers of electric cars are introducing advanced assisted driving features on their mass-production cars.

On June 4, Beijing authorized nine Chinese automakers — including Nio, BYD and SAIC Motor — to begin tests of advanced assisted driving systems that go beyond Tesla’s Full Self-Driving. At least initially, the tests will be done in restricted areas, not on public roads.

Baidu and Huawei, the electronics giant, are supplying part or all of these automated systems to many Chinese automakers. Baidu also has a joint venture with Zhejiang Geely, called Jiyue, to make robot taxis.

The China Society of Automotive Engineers forecasts that 20 percent of the cars sold in China in 2030 will be completely driverless and that another 70 percent will have advanced assisted driving technology.

Predicting the future popularity of driverless cars in the United States is difficult because it depends on how quickly carmakers switch to electric vehicles. Driverless technology works much better with battery electric cars than with gasoline-powered cars or most hybrid gasoline-electric cars. Electric motors can increase or decrease power with less of a lag and in more finely controlled increments.

In China, battery electric cars represent about 25 percent of the market, compared with 7 percent in the United States.

As with many technologies, including electric car batteries and solar panels, Chinese companies started developing driverless cars by studying American inventions, but then leaped forward in commercializing them. In the years before the Covid-19 pandemic, more than a dozen Chinese firms set up autonomous driving research centers in California, mainly in Silicon Valley. Some, like Baidu, hired hundreds of software engineers. They obtained permission from the California Department of Transportation to test cars on public roads.

These companies moved most of their research to China during the pandemic, when Beijing sealed the country’s borders but allowed key researchers to return. They have continued to work in China.

“If you take California out of the equation, China’s autonomous driving industry would be nowhere near where it is now,” said Michael Dunne, a San Diego automotive consultant who specializes in China.

China has been a big market for Tesla and its advanced assisted driving technologies, like Autopilot. But Beijing is now cracking down on any movement of this data out of China.

Mr. Musk visited Beijing in April to seek approval for his company to offer Full Self-Driving in China. He reached deals to keep in China any data gathered in the country, and to obtain high-resolution maps of Chinese roads through an agreement with Baidu.

China does not allow foreign companies to have direct access to high-resolution maps, which are crucial to driverless systems.

Assisted driving or driverless cars use tiny cameras mounted on their exteriors, or in some cases miniature laser systems, to collect information. Most of that data is processed by the car’s computers, which make decisions on steering and vehicle speed.

Although most of the data from cameras and lasers on cars is not uploaded to the carmakers, the potential for tracking people and mapping sensitive locations has troubled security experts.

Europe and the United States still allow manufacturers to send driving data to China, but that may change. 

Gina M. Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary, said last month that the United States would propose rules this fall to regulate cars that were electronically linked to China. Europe has also begun studying the issue.

Baidu believes it has a three- to five-year lead over Tesla in Chinese cities like Wuhan, according to Wang Yunpeng, president of Baidu’s intelligent driving business group. By operating fully driverless cars in these places, Baidu has learned how the traffic works, block by block, he said in a speech last month.

From steamy coastal ports in southeastern China like Shenzhen and Fuzhou to metropolises in the mountains of western China, like Chongqing and Chengdu, cities across China are encouraging broad experimentation." [1]

The most stupid in this activity seems to be my friends in Japan. Huge relief to know it.

1. China Is Testing More Driverless Cars Than Any Other Country. Bradsher, Keith.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Jun 13, 2024