Volvo announced on Monday it is partnering with DiDi Autonomous Driving of China’s DiDi Chuxing, which also owns the DiDi taxi service, to create a fleet of self-driving cars.

DiDi is a Chinese competitor to Uber with over 550 million users and tens of millions of drivers. Its specialists have developed the Gemini self-driving hardware platform that will be used in the Volvo XC90 crossovers. These vehicles are expected to eventually become the backbone of the driverless robotic taxi service.

“By expanding partnerships with global leaders in the automotive industry, we believe that collaborative, electric and autonomous vehicle networks will be critical to future urban transportation systems in order to achieve the highest standards of safety and sustainability,” – said Bob Zhang, CEO of DiDi Autonomous Driving and CTO of DiDi Chuxing.

Volvo already supplied the smaller XC2020 crossovers in 60 for the DiDi robotaxi pilot program, which then kicked off in Shanghai. The service provided passenger transportation services in certain areas of Shanghai, while drivers were driving in self-driving cars for safety reasons in case of an unforeseen situation.

We add that the company has not yet provided details on the technical equipment of self-driving Volvo XC90s with the Gemini system, and also has not announced when the new robotic taxi service will start transporting passengers.