Apollo Go and Uber agree a multi-year global deployment partnership

Background

Apollo Go's international expansion was presented as part of Baidu's second quarter 2025 results disclosure. In that disclosure, Baidu listed the Uber agreement alongside Lyft and testing in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as part of its international expansion.^[1]

What happened

In July 2025, Baidu disclosed that Apollo Go signed a multi-year strategic partnership with Uber. The plan is to deploy thousands of Apollo Go fully autonomous vehicles on the Uber platform across multiple international markets. Initial deployments were planned for Asia and the Middle East. Baidu described the arrangement as multi-year rather than a single-market launch.^[1]

Key details

The same quarterly disclosure said Apollo Go had reported more than 2.2 million fully driverless rides. That figure refers to rides without a human driver, which is a different measure from test distance or vehicle count. The Uber partnership and the ride figure were both included in the same results announcement, giving a sense of operating scale alongside the international plan.^[1]

The disclosed plan covers multiple international markets, with Asia and the Middle East named as the first regions. It is a platform partnership: Apollo Go vehicles are to be deployed on Uber's platform, rather than in a single city or a single country. Baidu's description emphasizes the multi-year structure of the deal.^[1]

Why it matters

The agreement places Apollo Go's international expansion in a platform model. A ride-hailing platform can connect riders with vehicles, so deploying autonomous vehicles on Uber's platform is a way to reach users across markets. For Apollo Go, the disclosed plan is multi-market and multi-year, not a one-off launch.^[1]

Baidu's disclosure also shows how the company framed the deal: the Uber partnership sits alongside Lyft and testing in Dubai and Abu Dhabi as part of a broader international expansion effort. The same quarter's report of more than 2.2 million fully driverless rides provides context for the scale of Apollo Go's operations at the time the partnership was announced.^[1]