Workers organising the TuSimple sales space for CES 2022 on the Las Vegas Convention Center on Jan. 3, 2022.
Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Embattled Chinese 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’s because of a online game based mostly on the hit martial arts novels by Jin Yong that is slated to launch an preliminary model that yr, Cheng stated. He anticipates “a number of hundred million” in income in 2027 when the complete model is launched.
Before the delisting, TuSimple stated it lost $500,000 in the first three quarters of 2023, and spent $164.4 million on analysis and growth throughout that point.
Company co-founder Mo Chen has a “lengthy historical past” with the Jin Yong household and began work in 2021 to develop an animated characteristic based mostly on the tales, Cheng stated.
The firm claims its synthetic intelligence capabilities in growing autonomous driving software program give it a base from which to develop generative AI. That’s the next-level tech powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which generates human-like responses to person prompts.
Along with the CreateAI rebrand, the corporate debuted its first main AI mannequin referred to as Ruyi, an open-source mannequin for visible work, out there by way of the Hugging Face platform.
“It’s clear our shareholders see the worth on this transformation and wish to transfer ahead on this route,” Cheng stated. “Our administration staff and Board of Directors have acquired overwhelming assist from shareholders on the annual assembly.”
He stated the corporate plans to extend headcount to round 500 subsequent yr, up from 300.
Cutting manufacturing prices by 70%
While nonetheless beneath the identify TuSimple, the corporate in August introduced a partnership with Shanghai Three Body Animation to develop the first animated feature film and video game based mostly on the science fiction novel sequence “The Three-Body Problem.”
The firm stated on the time that it was launching a brand new enterprise section 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. beneath the Biden administration has ramped up limits on Chinese companies’ entry to superior semiconductors used to energy generative AI.
