Baidu has opened up its driverless car technology for auto makers to use as it aims to be the default platform for autonomous driving in a bid to challenge the likes of Google and Tesla.

The Chinese internet giant said on Wednesday that the new project named Apollo, will provide the tools carmakers would need to make autonomous vehicles. There would be reference designs and a complete software solution that includes cloud data services.

Essentially, Baidu is trying to become to cars what Google's Android has become to smartphones – an operating system that will power a number of driverless vehicles.