Details
- Baidu Inc. announced that Apollo Go has received Dubai’s first permit for fully driverless vehicle testing from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), authorizing operation on public roads with no safety driver.
- The permit was issued during the opening of Apollo Go Park in downtown Dubai, which serves as Apollo Go’s first overseas operations and management hub.
- Apollo Go Park integrates intelligent road infrastructure, charging, maintenance, and command-and-control functions to support large-scale autonomous ride-hailing operations.
- The new permit builds on an earlier autonomous driving trial license and a 50-vehicle RT6 test fleet, and underpins plans to deploy more than 1,000 fully driverless vehicles in Dubai over the coming years.
- Baidu and RTA aim to launch a fully autonomous commercial ride-hailing service in Dubai as early as the first quarter of 2026, subject to successful safety, reliability, and customer-experience trials.
- Dubai’s regulators frame the move as a milestone in the emirate’s smart mobility strategy, targeting improved road safety, reduced emissions, and higher transport network efficiency through autonomous taxis and ride-hailing services.
- Apollo Go leverages extensive global experience, including hundreds of millions of autonomous kilometers and operations across multiple cities, as it localizes its technology and processes for the UAE market.
Impact
Baidu securing Dubai’s first fully driverless testing permit and simultaneously opening Apollo Go Park positions the Chinese tech giant as an early, influential player in the Gulf’s emerging robotaxi market. The move advances Dubai’s ambition to integrate autonomous vehicles into mainstream transport and puts competitive pressure on global AV and ride-hailing players eyeing the region. By granting trials without safety drivers on public roads, Dubai signals regulatory confidence in mature autonomous driving stacks and reinforces its strategy of using flexible but stringent frameworks to attract frontier mobility technologies. The dedicated control and operations hub suggests a push toward scalable, city-level deployments rather than limited pilots, with a planned 1,000-vehicle fleet potentially shifting expectations for commercial robotaxi density outside China and the US. If Apollo Go meets safety and service benchmarks and launches commercial services in early 2026, it could accelerate regional investment into AV infrastructure, encourage rival platforms to localize in the UAE, and strengthen the case for similar regulatory models in other smart-city projects over the next two years.
