Baidu’s new AI simulator gives robotaxis a crash course in rare road hazards

For autonomous vehicles, the hardest lessons to learn are the ones that can test the skills of even the most experienced human drivers: an errant cyclist darting through a red light, or an animal bolting into oncoming traffic from behind a corner.

The Chinese tech giant Baidu has developed a new AI-driven simulator to prepare its Apollo robotaxis for just such rare but high-stakes road hazards, as the firm looks to gain an edge in the fast-growing self-driving taxi market.

The system, Apollo World, can build complete virtual journeys from scratch, allowing the company to prepare vehicles for scenarios that are difficult to capture safely in real-world testing, according to executives.