China’s Tencent builds self-driving car team in Silicon Valley – Reuters
What happened: Chinese tech behemoth Tencent is recruiting a team of engineers for self-driving cars in Silicon Valley. According to the company’s job postings on LinkedIn, it has opened up at least nine engineering positions in areas such as motion planning, sensor fusion, vehicle intelligence and machine learning over the past month. “We are building a research team for our Auto-drive Team based in Palo Alto, CA,” Tencent said in the LinkedIn job ad.
Why it’s important: Tencent is joining a slew of tech companies in a race for talent in Silicon Valley—the hub for testing and researching driverless cars. The internet giant received approval from authorities to test autonomous vehicles on designated roads in Shenzhen, where it is headquartered. Whether the company has obtained a permit for testing in Silicon Valley is still unclear. Tencent has been making big moves in autonomous driving. Earlier this month the company debuted its independent brand Tencent Autonomous Driving in a bid to position itself as a software and service provider in the emerging industry.