Chinese Ride-Hailing Company Opens Silicon Valley Lab

China ride-hailing giant DiDi Chuxing has opened DiDi Labs in Mountain View, Calif., to develop new mobility technologies and advanced cybersecurity systems.

The California facility will work in tandem with DiDi’s other global research and development centers. Initial projects include cloud-based security, deep learning, computer vision and imaging, autonomous driving technologies, human-machine interaction and smart city applications.

The new center will be headed by Fengmin Gong, who currently is vice president of DiDi Research Institute. DiDi says it has hired dozens of data scientists and researchers—including cybersecurity expert Charlie Miller—and plans to “rapidly expand” the staff this year.

Miller and partner Chris Valasek are so-called "whitehackers" who famously took control of several vehicle functions—including the throttle—in a Jeep Cherokee in 2015. Miller previously worked for the U.S. National Security Agency.

DiDi was created in 2012 by the combination of separate apps backed by internet giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group Holding. Last May Apple Inc. invested $1 billion in company, which competes against Uber Technologies Inc. in China.

DiDi also is partnering with Udacity Inc., a Silicon Valley-based online education provider, on the the DiDi-Udacity Self-Driving Car Challenge. Finalists will run their code on Udacity's self-driving cars, work with DiDi's intelligent driving team and compete for a grand prize of $100,000.