A global autonomous driving tech company announced a collaboration with Dallas-based Hillwood to integrate its infrastructure specification into current and future industrial and commercial properties, according to a news release.
In June 2021, San Diego-based TuSimple (Nasdaq: TSP) announced the opening of a million square foot facility built within the AllianceTexas development in Fort Worth. The site will add over 50 new transportation jobs to the local community, including safety drivers, maintenance technicians and operations personnel.
The AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone provides partner companies access to a testing and commercialization ecosystem and resources and partnerships to adopt, integrate and scale autonomous trucking.
"We partnered with TuSimple, a leader in autonomous trucking, to provide the guidance and technical parameters required to prepare this new facility for the rapid adoption and expansion of autonomous trucking operations throughout the region and beyond," Hillwood chairman Ross Perot Jr. said in the release.
This new facility will be designed and fitted to meet TuSimple's operational and technical requirements and will be compatible with the current and future expansion of the company's autonomous freight network.
This facility is intended to serve as an origin and destination facility for L4 autonomous trucks that use TuSimple's autonomous driving system. The DFW site is also the first of three steps of TuSimple's plan for a national network for shipping autonomous freight by 2024. The locale will serve as a key hub for its push into more states, including Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina. It also bolsters an expansion in Texas.
"We are seeing unprecedented demand for autonomous trucking capacity as the logistics industry looks for ways to become safer, more efficient and more environmentally friendly," TuSimple President and CEO Cheng Lu said in the release. "Hillwood's investment in these properties today will make it easier for companies to adopt, integrate and scale autonomous trucking operations."
The Dallas region has been attracting investments from other autonomous trucking companies. That includes Amazon-backed Aurora which said in May 2021 it would be moving into a second, larger office to accommodate its growing employee base and testing fleet. Last summer, J.B. Hunt Transport Services and Waymo announced a collaboration to autonomously move freight in a test run that includes Fort Worth.
