China’s Uber rival Didi Chuxing has officially opened its U.S.-based
research lab. The new center is part of a move to suck up talent beyond
Didi’s current catchment pool in China, particularly in the areas of AI
and self-driving vehicles, but it doesn’t signal an expansion of
its service into North America.
The existence of the research center itself isn’t new. Last September, TechCrunch wrote that Didi had hired a pair of experienced security experts
based in the U.S. — Dr Fengmin Gong and Zheng Bu — to lead the center,
which works closely with another China-based facility that opened in
late 2015, but now it is officially open.
Dr Gong will lead the facility in Mountain View, and his team of
“dozens of leading data scientists and researchers” will include former
Uber researcher Charlie Miller. Miller rose to fame in 2015 when he hacked a journalist’s vehicle from a laptop 10 miles away in a pre-arranged stunt to demonstrate vulnerabilities within the automotive industry.
Miller’s job seems much like his role at Uber according to tweets he
sent out today. His defection is noteworthy since it appears to be the
first major poach that Didi has made from Uber, and it falls in the
self-driving car space where Uber has made a huge push.
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