In 2025, DeepRoute AI intends to introduce over ten models to its automotive customers. A technology license fee per vehicle will be used to fund the company's expanding fleet, and data collection is essential to its AI technology.

DeepRoute AI, a Chinese firm that develops smart driving technology, announced on Monday that it has secured $100 million from a carmaker. The business hopes to increase the widespread use of its systems on cars before Tesla does in China.

By the end of 2025, the Shenzhen-based business hopes to have around 200,000 vehicles on Chinese roads with its cutting-edge ADA system, up from the current 20,000 or so, CEO Maxwell Zhou told Reuters in an interview.

Comparable to Tesla's Full Self-Driving cars (FSD), which the American manufacturer plans to introduce in China in the upcoming months, the system can maneuver through urban traffic.

According to Zhou, DeepRoute.ai intends to introduce over ten models with its manufacturer partners by 2025. According to him, two additional models—including one under the smart brand that Geely and Mercedes-Benz jointly own—will be delivered to customers this year after the first model with its system debuted in August. The business will make money from the expanding fleet through a technology license charge per vehicle and gather data that will help its AI technology advance more quickly to manage increasingly complex traffic scenarios.

The e-commerce behemoth Alibaba is one of DeepRoute.ai's current supporters, and the business has chosen not to disclose the identity of the Chinese carmaker that is the only investor in this financing round. Additionally, it withheld the company's post-fundraising valuation. As a fierce pricing war rages among hundreds of models in the largest car market in the world, automakers have been vying for Chinese consumers by offering more sophisticated autonomous driving functions as a selling pitch.