Hong Kong (CNN Business) China's leading search engine will soon be helping make deliveries for Walmart, bringing it into direct competition with Google's driverless technology.

California startup Udelv announced Tuesday that it will deploy self-driving vans using Baidu's technology in Surprise, Arizona, as part of a pilot program to deliver fresh groceries for Walmart ( WMT ).

Udelv has developed a fleet of autonomous delivery vans on Baidu's ( BIDU ) open-source autonomous driving platform, Apollo.

The partnership with Baidu comes amid heightened trade tensions between the United States and China, a lot of which are centered around advanced technologies, and highlights how companies from the two countries continue to work together.

California startup Udelv has developed a fleet of autonomous delivery vans on Baidu's (BIDU) open-source autonomous driving platform, Apollo.

Udelv CEO Daniel Laury said using Apollo software helped speed up development of the company's latest self-driving delivery van, dubbed the Newton.

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