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cailianshe news, september 26 (editor li lin/intern editor chen yujia)uber and chinese self-driving technology company weride announced a partnership on wednesday to bring weride's self-driving vehicles to the uber platform, starting with the united arab emirates.

this collaboration marks weride’s first partnership with a global ride-hailing platform, which will help expand its business outside of china. it will also allow uber to further promote the use of robotaxis on its platform.

in early september, uber expanded its cooperation with waymo, a subsidiary of alphabet, to introduce self-driving taxi services to austin and atlanta in the united states. in august of this year, uber also reached a cooperation with cruise, the self-driving division of general motors, and plans to provide cruise's self-driving vehicles on the platform starting next year.

uber and weride expect to begin operations in abu dhabi by the end of this year. weride has received the uae's first and only national autonomous vehicle license, allowing the chinese company to test and operate self-driving taxis on public roads in the uae.

previously, weride had planned to go public in the united states with a valuation of up to $5 billion, but its initial public offering (ipo) plan has been postponed. the company has said that it is completing relevant documents to advance the listing process.

weride's business currently focuses on autonomous driving, such as robotaxi (autonomous driving taxis), robobus (autonomous driving minibuses), robovan (autonomous driving freight vehicles), robosweeper (autonomous driving sanitation vehicles), etc. between 2021 and 2023, weride sold less than 20 autonomous driving taxis and nearly 150 autonomous driving minibuses.

at the end of november 2019, weride launched the country's first fully open robotaxi commercial operation service to citizens in guangzhou, and then achieved full commercial coverage of urban roads and highways in beijing's high-level autonomous driving demonstration area. currently, the company is conducting autonomous driving r&d, testing and operations in 30 cities in 7 countries around the world.

it is worth noting that the biden administration proposed a discriminatory ban draft on monday, which intends to restrict the use of chinese connected car software, hardware and complete vehicles in the united states. this policy change has brought new uncertainties to international cooperation in the field of autonomous driving.