(Yicai) July 4 -- China is piloting ‘vehicle-road-cloud integration,’ which is the linking of smart cars with roadside perception and cloud control, in 20 cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, to promote the large-scale application of autonomous driving in multiple scenarios, such as passenger cars, logistics and delivery.

The pilot will build low-latency and reliable cloud control infrastructure, explore a new interest-sharing business model with state-owned platforms, carmakers, operators and technology companies, and form a unified test evaluation system, an official with the First Division of Equipment Industry at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said at a press conference.

Unlike single-vehicle intelligence, ‘vehicle-road-cloud integration’ uses artificial intelligence and communication technology to integrate information about vehicles, roads, and clouds to control vehicles, making travel more intelligent and connected.

The other 17 cities on the list compiled by the MIIT and four other government departments include Ordos in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Shenyang in Liaoning province, Changchun in Jilin province, Nanjing, Suzhou, and Wuxi in Jiangsu province, Chengdu in Sichuan province, and Guangzhou and Shenzhen in Guangdong province.

The cities were selected based on their urban transportation infrastructure and communication facilities as well as the need to apply ICVs in their traffic management, public transportation and logistics, National Business Daily reported, citing an expert.

The country has opened more than 32,000 kilometers of test roads for autonomous driving and issued over 7,700 test licenses, the official said. Self-driving vehicles have driven over 120 million kilometers of tests and there are more than 8,700 sets of roadside units.

Several places in the country have started to construct cloud control infrastructure. However, the network is still fragmented, making it difficult to support the large-scale application of autonomous driving technology.

Editor: Kim Taylor