The East Lake High-tech Development Zone in Wuhan, also known as Optics Valley of China, signed the projects with Chinese tech giant Baidu and Jidu Auto, a joint EV venture between Baidu and Chinese automaker Geely, on Jan. 11.

Baidu has expanded the commercial operation area and times of its driverless taxi service in Wuhan. The company's autonomous ride-hailing platform Apollo Go has launched robotaxis at night in Wuhan for the first time, marking a new stage of the commercial operation of autonomous driving in China.

Currently, with over 50 fully driverless taxis in operation, Apollo Go has an operation area covering more than 130 square km in Wuhan.

Jidu Auto plans to build R&D headquarters and value-added service headquarters in Wuhan. The company will also promote auto finance, energy business and other new businesses to settle in Wuhan.

So far, Optics Valley has gathered more than 200 enterprises in the field of intelligent network connected industry.（en.hubei.gov.cn by Zhang Yawei）