TikTok owner ByteDance, start-up Haomo.AI launch new infrastructure to boost autonomous driving push in world’s biggest car market

Haomo.AI and Volcano Engine, a cloud service owned by ByteDance, have established China’s largest dedicated computing centre for autonomous driving

The venture shows increased optimism about the technology in China, which is forecast to become the world’s largest autonomous vehicle market by 2035

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China is predicted to have more than 5.7 million autonomous driving vehicles on its roads by 2035. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 6 Jan 2023

Chinese tech unicorn ByteDance is broadening its artificial intelligence activities with Haomo.AI Technology Co, a start-up controlled by Great Wall Motor chairman Wei Jianjun, as they establish the country’s largest dedicated computing centre for autonomous driving.

This centre, called Mana Oasis, was launched on Thursday by Haomo.AI and Volcano Engine, a cloud service platform owned by ByteDance, in a move that is poised to accelerate efforts to promote the adoption of advanced self-driving technology in the world’s biggest car market and second-largest economy.

“We will jointly promote this leap-forward development of intelligent training platform in the autonomous driving industry, and accelerate the commercialisation of autonomous driving technology,” Tan Dai, president of Volcano Engine, said at the launch in Beijing.

Mana Oasis, according to Haomo.AI, has a total computing power of 670 petaflops, or 670 quadrillion floating point operations per second, which is higher than what other facilities in China currently provide. That power enables the centre to more accurately simulate a three-dimensional driving environment and cut the rate of error by more than 30 per cent.

Tan Dai, president of ByteDance-owned cloud service provider Volcano Engine, (left) and Gu Weihao, chief executive of start-up Haomo.AI Technology Co, lead the launch in Beijing of Mana Oasis, China’s largest dedicated computing centre for autonomous driving, on January 5, 2023. Photo: Weibo

Mana Oasis’ computing power has surpassed the 600-petaflop capacity of a similar self-driving technology computing centre, dubbed “Fuyao”, set up in August last year by the cloud services subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post, and Chinese smart electric vehicle maker Xpeng.