Driverless semi truck startup pivots to making sci-fi movie and video game

This week, driverless truck tech company TuSimple announced a surprising pivot toward content creation after winding down operations in the U.S. last year.

On August 14, San Diego, California-headquartered TuSimple announced plans to utilize the company’s AI technology used in autonomous vehicle development to create a feature film and video game adaptation of the science fiction novel series The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin.

“The globally acclaimed The Three-Body Problem series provides an exceptional canvas to showcase our emerging generative AI capabilities, which we believe will provide a near-term path to commercialization,” said Cheng Lu, President and CEO of TuSimple. “We intend to collaborate with world-class creative talent to ensure exceptional storytelling. Our goal is to amplify human creativity, help shorten development timelines and address the backlog of projects in the industry.”

The company says that they have “no plans to exit the transportation sector” and that they will continue to “monetize … autonomous vehicle technology through technology partnerships and licensing.”

Founded in 2015, TuSimple was at one time one of the most prominent autonomous truck technology developers in the U.S. However, after the FBI, SEC, and Committee on Foreign Investment opened investigations into TuSimple over alleged ties to China-based startup Hydron Inc, the company announced in December 2023 that they would wind down U.S. operations and cut 75% of their U.S. workforce .

The company was also investigated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) following a crash on April 6, 2022, during which a TuSimple truck made contact with a concrete median divider in Tucson, Arizona . That investigation was closed in March 2023 without any penalties for TuSimple.

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