Visitors check out a Baidu's Apollo self-driving bus during a high-tech expo in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/China Daily]

Licenses to allow road rests for self-driving cars that carry passengers were granted to Chinese artificial intelligence giant Baidu Friday by the government of Cangzhou city in northern China's Hebei province.

A total of 30 car plates were given to Baidu's intelligent connected vehicles (ICV) at the 2019 China International Digital Economy Expo. This is the first time that Baidu's ICVs were issued car plates for road tests that carry passengers in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

A regulation on ICV road test management has also been issued in Cangzhou in support of ICV road testing.

Before the expo, Baidu and Cangzhou municipal government reached an agreement to work together on technologies of artificial intelligence, self-driving, cloud computing and big data to build a "smart Cangzhou."

The China International Digital Economy Expo, held from Oct 11 to 13, is jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Hebei provincial government. Themed as "Digital Economy Leads High Quality Development," the expo is comprised of exhibitions, a forum on smart development of the Xiongan New Area and investment promotion activities.