TuSimple has rebranded to shift away from autonomous trucking and toward AI animations and games. The company will henceforth be referred to as CreateAI.
The rename This comes at a time when TuSimple is embroiled in controversy over the corporate's plans to maneuver its remaining U.S. assets to China to finance the brand new business the corporate originally announced in August.
TuSimple ceased its self-driving truck business within the United States and was delisted in January 2024, three years after the corporate raised $1.35 billion in its IPO. The company had originally planned to restart operations in China, but earlier this 12 months TuSimple parted ways with most of its autonomous driving employees. Shortly after, the corporate began hiring for positions related to AI animation and gaming.
Shareholders have objected to the business shakeup and accused Mo Chen, TuSimple's other co-founder, chief producer and director, of self-dealing.
Chen owns or has ties to several other animation and gaming corporations. And it seems that Chen's other corporations are involved in the brand new TuSimple/CreateAI enterprise. In a current one submissionTuSimple said its board approved a $25 million deal in November with two game development corporations affiliated with Chen to develop and distribute “Heroes of Jin Yong,” a role-playing video game. To reduce potential conflicts of interest, in May 2024, Chen transferred his ownership interests in these corporations to a trust that he doesn’t control, although the trust's beneficiaries are members of his family, in response to the filing.
CreateAI doesn’t have an energetic AV development program. But in September, TuSimple CEO Cheng Lu told TechCrunch that the corporate still intended to license its self-driving technology to partners in China. CreateAI's marketing strategy released on Wednesday also points to a plan to monetize existing autonomous driving IPs.
Some shareholders, particularly co-founder and former CEO Xiaodi Hou, want to stop the corporate from moving its remaining money, which was $450 million in September, to China.
Earlier this week, Hou called on shareholders to assist him oust the board and replace it with a board that might liquidate the corporate and return all existing money to shareholders.
CreateAI's plan for this capital is becoming clearer. In parallel with its rebranding, CreateAI has announced the debut of its first large-scale image-to-video AI model called Ruyi, available as open source on Hugging Face. The company said in a press release that it developed Ruyi in lower than six months, partly by leveraging “technological know-how that builds on the corporate's expertise in autonomous driving.” CreateAI says its model also lays the inspiration for proprietary AI tools and infrastructure for video game and anime content development.
“We are confident that our integrated approach on the intersection of generative AI and digital entertainment creation is a differentiating factor that gives significant long-term growth opportunities,” Lu said in a press release.
CreateAI, which can be collaborating with Japanese anime designer Shōji Kawamori to bring “Father of Macross” to life in an animated feature film and video game, also unveiled it long-term business strategy for generative AI animations and games.
