Waymo, the self-driving car technology division of Alphabet, has registered a company in Shanghai called Huimo Business Consulting, according to a business registration filing. The Chinese subsidiary has 3.5 million yuan ($508,000) in capital and mentions Waymo as an investor.
This means that Waymo might potentially come into direct competition with China’s domestic companies Baidu, Didi Chuxing, Alibaba and Tencent who are also working on developing their own autonomous technology for vehicles.