Baidu to share progress on its world model for self-driving cars

World models are one of the hottest areas in AI right now. Their core idea is to model and predict the physical environment, helping AI better understand the real world. According to a report, Baidu plans to share its latest research progress on world models soon. If applied to autonomous driving, it could improve prediction and decision-making in complex road situations, supporting the large-scale rollout of driverless cars. Baidu's robotaxi service Apollo Go now operates in 28 cities worldwide and has collected a large amount of real road data, laying the groundwork for its world model research. The model's exact use and its ties to Apollo Go remain unclear. The Baidu World 2026 conference will be held on November 12 in Beijing, themed The Next Act: Intelligent Organization, focusing on AI-driven organizational restructuring and echoing Robin Li's AI prediction made ten years ago.