Pony.ai

Pony.ai (小马智行, Pony AI Inc.) is an autonomous driving technology company founded in December 2016 by James Peng and Tiancheng Lou, both formerly software engineers at Baidu. The company develops an autonomous driving system (its "virtual driver") deployed in robotaxi services and in autonomous trucks. It runs R&D and operations in China (including Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen) and the United States (the Silicon Valley area and Fremont, California). In April 2022 it became the first autonomous driving company to obtain a taxi license in China. In November 2024 it went public on Nasdaq (ticker PONY), raising about $260M, and in November 2025 it completed a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Its partners include Toyota and Sany Heavy Industry, and it is pursuing international expansion (the Middle East, Europe and Singapore).