Singapore firms plug into China’s growing market for autonomous vehicles

GUANGZHOU – Driverless buses outfitted with a Singapore start-up’s technology will soon ply the streets in Guangzhou, marking the latest foray by the Republic’s firms into China’s autonomous vehicle scene.

Home-grown start-up MooVita has inked a joint venture agreement with two Chinese partners that aims to eventually roll out autonomous buses in China’s Greater Bay Area and internationally.

MooVita expects to begin in 2026 with an initial deployment of 26 buses providing last-mile connectivity in the China-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, a township located about an hour north of the Guangzhou city centre.

This was one of 20 agreements signed on Nov 25 at a meeting of the Singapore-Guangdong Collaboration Council co-chaired by Health Minister Ong Ye Kung and newly minted Guangdong Governor Meng Fanli. The annual meeting, held in Guangzhou in 2025, oversees cooperation between Singapore and China’s largest provincial economy.

Mr Meng, who was co-chairing the council for the first time, noted that the 180 attendees included many from the business, investment and education fields. “I sincerely welcome more Singapore firms to come to Guangdong to invest, trade or carry out other business activities,” he said.

Mr Ong said many Singapore companies saw the province as a launch pad to the rest of China and into third markets, and that more Guangdong businesses were also expanding into Singapore with an eye on South-east Asia.

Going forward, both sides can “cooperate in market access, especially for innovative and high-technology sectors”, he said.

The meeting spotlighted tie-ups in autonomous driving, with two Singapore companies signing agreements in this field.

China is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets for the technology, producing a host of industry bigwigs such as Baidu, Pony.ai and WeRide.

MooVita, which spun off from A*STAR in 2016, develops autonomous driving technology. Its two partners are Guangzhou Public Transport Group and Guangzhou Development District Communications Investment Group.

Its chief executive Derrick Loh told The Straits Times that Guangzhou’s forward-leaning policies for autonomous driving were a plus for the company’s development.

“The local regulatory environment allows for more progressive and agile testing, piloting, and commercial deployment of autonomous vehicles... compared with Singapore’s more conservative regulatory landscape,” he said.

The company, which also runs autonomous vehicles in Tianjin, currently operates driverless buses on the Ngee Ann Polytechnic campus, and

has partnered ride-hailing company Ryde

to propose a driverless shuttle in Punggol.

Also expanding further into China’s autonomous vehicle space is Singapore’s ComfortDelGro, which on Nov 25 signed a memorandum of understanding with the Alibaba-backed Hello Robotaxi to collaborate on robotaxi deployment in China and overseas markets.

The tie-up will see Hello Robotaxi provide the technology, vehicles and data, with ComfortDelGro deploying and managing the robotaxi services.

“It is a significant step in developing our autonomous vehicle capabilities and securing our long-term position in the future of point-to-point mobility,” said ComfortDelGro’s group CEO Cheng Siak Kian in a statement.

This agreement is the company’s latest move to build up capabilities in driverless technologies. Partnering Pony.ai, it launched a robotaxi pilot programme in Guangzhou in March, and plans to operate a driverless shuttle route in Singapore’s Punggol with Pony.ai’s vehicles in 2026.