SAN FRANCISCO and SHENZHEN, China and ZHANGJIAJIE, China, May 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hitch Open World AI Championships and Whale Dynamic today announced that their strategic partnership has entered full-scale delivery. Whale Dynamic will provide all Hitch Open competing teams with a centimeter-accurate 3D high-definition (HD) map covering the entire 10.77-kilometer Tianmen Mountain course—featuring 1,100 meters of elevation change and 99 consecutive hairpin turns—as the unified localization baseline for the Hitch Open World AI Racing Championships 2026, scheduled for June 25–26 in Zhangjiajie, China.

Joint On-Site Survey Completed

A joint survey team from Whale Dynamic and the Hitch Open Committee has completed a full high-precision LiDAR scanning operation across the entire 99-turn mountain course. Using Whale Dynamic’s proprietary multi-beam LiDAR and visual-image deep-fusion SLAM technology, the team constructed a seamless, industrial-grade 3D map capturing road-surface geometry, lane boundaries, guardrails, tunnels, gradient, and curvature data—all at centimeter-level accuracy.

The map provides competing teams with four critical capabilities:

A centimeter-accurate 3D baseline spanning the full 10.77 km as the unified reference frame for localization and path planning;Robust localization in GPS-denied environments through real-time LiDAR-to-map matching, compensating for satellite signal loss in tunnels, deep valleys, and dense forest;Full-stack perception–prediction–planning support, with prior curvature, gradient, and sight-distance data feeding directly into trajectory planning and limit-condition decision models;Data fairness and auditability—all teams compete on an identical map, eliminating performance noise from map disparities and making the algorithm the sole variable determining results.

AWSIM Adopted as Official Simulation Platform

Alongside the HD map delivery, Hitch Open has officially adopted the open-source Autoware Simulator (AWSIM) as its official simulation racing platform. Whale Dynamic will assist all teams in importing the Tianmen Mountain HD map into AWSIM, along with sensor simulation models, vehicle dynamics, and course assets, to create a digital twin of the full course. Teams’ algorithm performance on this digital-twin Tianmen Mountain will serve as the official format for future simulation qualifying rounds, enabling universities worldwide to compete in preliminary rounds remotely before advancing to the on-site finals.

“We are excited to have completed this challenging on-site road-scanning operation together with the Hitch Open Organizing Committee. Tianmen Mountain’s 99 turns represent the ultimate test of an autonomous driving system’s perception, localization, and decision-making under extreme conditions. Through our industrial-grade HD map and localization baseline, we aim to give every competing team worldwide a unified, reliable, and publicly verifiable technical foundation.”

— Mr. David Chang, Founder and CEO, Whale Dynamic

“Hitch Open and Whale Dynamic have completed the full loop—from signing at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix, to the joint Tianmen Mountain survey, to HD map delivery—providing all teams with an industrial-grade 3D localization solution. Our adoption of AWSIM as the official simulation platform further enhances the openness and standardization of the championships, creating a digital-twin pathway for more teams around the world to participate.”

— Ms. Crystal Tang, Chairperson, Hitch Open Organizing Committee

About Whale Dynamic

Founded in 2018, Whale Dynamic is a leading AI-driven technology company specializing in integrated hardware-software systems, intelligent vehicle platforms, and autonomous driving data solutions. The company delivers end-to-end technology for L4-level autonomous vehicles on public roads, with deep expertise in multi-sensor fusion, environmental perception, planning and control, and industrial-grade HD map construction. Website: www.whaledynamic.com

About Hitch Open World AI Championships

Hitch Open is the world’s first physical intelligence arena in the natural world, using real-world extreme scenarios to systematically test the safety, reliability, and limit capabilities of AI autonomous driving and robotics. The platform has set global records in autonomous driving, vertical-track racing, and humanoid robotics, and is committed to building an open, fair, and collaborative ecosystem that advances frontier technologies from the laboratory to the real world. Hitch Open is organized by Hitch Interactive. Website: hitchopen.ai

Media Contact

Intelligent Racing Inc. dba Hitch Interactive

Email: [email protected]

Whale Dynamic

Email: [email protected]

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Source: Hitch Interactive