Bei Mobilitätsthemen führt weiterhin kein Weg an China vorbei. Und der Abstand wird größer.
When it comes to industry action in ADR4, China again performed strongly. Several big players in China´s automotive and technology sector just recently agreed or strengthened partnerships: BMW was offered a seat on the board of Baidu´s autonomous driving platform; Daimler announced to deepen its partnership with Baidu and Audi, and Huawei signed a strategic cooperation on autonomous and connected technologies, just to mention a few.ADR4 also shows that the last 12 months were a busy year for investors. Venture capitalists poured more than USD 25 billion into mobility services and artificial intelligence (AI). One year ago the figure was USD 14 billion. The growth rate in AI-investments is especially impressive: a plus of 153%. Again, Chinese AI companies like deep-learning specialist SenseTime, raising a record USD 600 million, were the major beneficiaries. But it´s not only capital, the number of R&D employees working on mobility services and autonomous driving is also continuously increasing. Compared toa year ago, the figure rose by 27% to an all-time high of 57,000 employees. Patent approvals also increased significantly, with the share of patents relating to autonomous vehicles rising from 2.2% in 2017 to 3.9% in the first half of 2018.
