Chinese autonomous truck company TuSimple is switching to genAI for gaming

The company announced Thursday that weakened Chinese autonomous trucking company TuSimple has changed its name to CreateAI, focusing on video games and animation.

The news came as GM folded its Cruise robotaxi business this monthand the once-hot autonomous vehicle startup sector has begun weeding out laggards. TuSimple, operating in the US and China markets, had its own challenges: vehicle safety concernsAND Settlement for $189 million securities fraud lawsuit and delisted from the Nasdaq in February.

Now, just over two years after CEO Cheng Lu rejoined the company in that position following his layoff, he expects the company to break even in 2026.

This is thanks to a video game based on Jin Yong's hit martial arts novels, the first version of which is expected to be released this year, Cheng said. It predicts “several hundred million” in revenue in 2027, when the full version launches.

Before being delisted, TuSimple said this lost $500,000 in the first three quarters of 2023and spent $164.4 million on research and development during that time.

Company co-founder Mo Chen has a “long history” with the Jin Yong family and began working in 2021 to create an animated film based on those stories, Cheng said.

The company says its artificial intelligence capabilities in developing autonomous driving software lay the foundation for the development of generative artificial intelligence. This is the next-level technology powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT, which generates human-like responses to user prompts.

With the rebranding of CreateAI, the company debuted its first major AI model called Ruyi, an open-source model for visual workflow available through the Hugging Face platform.

“It is clear that our shareholders see the value in this transformation and want to move in this direction,” Cheng said. “Our management team and Board of Directors have received tremendous support from shareholders.” The company said it would hold its annual shareholders' meeting on Friday. He said the company plans to increase its workforce to about 500 next year from 300.

Co-founder Xiaodi Hou, who claims to be the company's largest individual shareholder with a 29.7% stake, has publicly questioned the shift toward gaming and animation. Hou said he would withhold or oppose the support at the shareholders' meeting and called for the company's liquidation. Hou has since started his own Houston-based autonomous truck company, Bot Auto said it has secured $20 million in financing in September.

While still under the name TuSimple, the company announced its collaboration with Shanghai Three Body Animation in August develop the first feature-length animated film and video game based on the science fiction novel series “The Three-Body Problem”.

The company said at the time that it was launching a new business segment aimed at creating generative AI applications for video games and animation.

CreateAI expects to reduce the costs of the highest class, the so-called Triple A game production by 70% in the next five to six years, Cheng said. He did not want to reveal whether the company is in talks with the gaming giant Tencent.

Asked about the impact of the U.S. restrictions, Cheng said there were no issues and said the company uses cloud computing providers from both China and outside China.

The United States under Biden has tightened restrictions on Chinese companies' access to advanced semiconductors used to generate artificial intelligence.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that CreateAI, formerly TuSimple, is scheduled to hold its annual shareholder meeting on Friday.