China self-driving truck company TuSimple pivots to genAI for games

Embattled Chinese language autonomous trucking firm TuSimple has rebranded to CreateAI, specializing in video video games and animation, the corporate introduced Thursday.

The information comes as GM folded its Cruise robotaxi business this month, and the once-hot sector of self-driving startups has began to weed out stragglers. TuSimple, which straddled the U.S. and China markets, had its personal challenges: concerns over vehicle safety, a $189 million settlement of a securities fraud lawsuit and delisting from the Nasdaq in February.

Now, simply over two years after CEO Cheng Lu rejoined the corporate within the function after being pushed out, he expects the enterprise can break even in 2026.

That is because of a online game primarily based on the hit martial arts novels by Jin Yong that is slated to launch an preliminary model that 12 months, Cheng stated. He anticipates “a number of hundred million” in income in 2027 when the complete model is launched.

Earlier than the delisting, TuSimple stated it lost $500,000 in the first three quarters of 2023, and spent $164.4 million on analysis and improvement throughout that point.

Firm co-founder Mo Chen has a “lengthy historical past” with the Jin Yong household and began work in 2021 to develop an animated function primarily based on the tales, Cheng stated.

The corporate claims its synthetic intelligence capabilities in creating autonomous driving software program give it a base from which to develop generative AI. That is the next-level tech powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which generates human-like responses to person prompts.

Together with the CreateAI rebrand, the corporate debuted its first main AI mannequin referred to as Ruyi, an open-source mannequin for visible work, accessible by way of the Hugging Face platform.

“It is clear our shareholders see the worth on this transformation and need to transfer ahead on this route,” Cheng stated. “Our administration workforce and Board of Administrators have obtained overwhelming help from shareholders on the annual assembly.”

He stated the corporate plans to extend headcount to round 500 subsequent 12 months, up from 300.

Whereas nonetheless underneath the title TuSimple, the corporate in August introduced a partnership with Shanghai Three Physique Animation to develop the first animated feature film and video game primarily based on the science fiction novel sequence “The Three-Physique Drawback.”

The corporate stated on the time that it was launching a brand new enterprise phase to develop generative AI functions for video video games and animation.

CreateAI expects to decrease the price of top-tier, so-called triple A game production by 70% within the subsequent 5 to 6 years, Cheng stated. He declined to share whether or not the corporate was in talks with gaming big Tencent.

When requested concerning the influence of U.S. restrictions, Cheng claimed there have been no points and stated the corporate used a mixture of China and non-China cloud computing suppliers.

The U.S. underneath the Biden administration has ramped up limits on Chinese language companies’ entry to superior semiconductors used to energy generative AI.