Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with internet giant Baidu at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in South China's Hainan province on April 9.

According to the plan, they will pull together efforts to boost the development of vehicle networks, self-driving technology, shared vehicles and big data.

Representatives sign the strategic cooperation memorandum on April 9. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Baidu will support Great Wall Motors in running a trial area for connected vehicles and intelligent networks in Xushui district of Baoding city in North China's Hebei province.

Great Wall Motors' self-driving system, i-Pilot, will be integrated with Baidu's Apollo system to build an open platform for self-driving software and hardware.

In the fields of shared vehicles and big data, the new alliance will explore new ways to reshape public transport with a new vehicle-mounted system based on natural language.

An autonomous Great Wall vehicle [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Headquartered in Baoding, Great Wall Motors is China's biggest SUV maker, selling more than 1 million vehicles every year. Baidu enjoys rich resources in artificial intelligence, interactive technologies, automatic driving and big data.

The two partners have a bright future based on their history of making solid progress in high-precision map and positioning technology in 2016.