Waymo's Shanghai Subsidiary Gives Alphabet Another Route Back to China

(Bloomberg) -- Waymo has set up a subsidiary in China, the latest sign of attempts by parent Alphabet Inc. to get back into the world’s second-largest economy.

Waymo, the business created from Google’s self-driving car project, set up a unit in Shanghai called Huimo Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. on May 22, according to a filing with China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.

With capital of 3.5 million yuan ($441,000), Huimo will focus on design and testing of self-driving vehicle parts and products, supply chain and logistics consulting, and business consulting, the filing said.

Waymo LLC is listed as an investor in Huimo. Other personnel include Chief Executive Officer John Krafcik, who is listed as a director, and Kevin Vosen, Waymo’s top lawyer.

A Waymo spokeswoman confirmed the legal entity and said the company has people working in Shanghai, but declined to comment further on plans.

Google executives confirmed for the first time last week that they’re looking to get their search engine up and running in China after a hiatus of almost a decade. The company’s cloud-computing business is also trying to getting into the country, which is the world’s largest internet market.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.net;Lee Spears in New York at lspears3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair Barr, Andrew Pollack

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