Roadlink International Trading Limited said that the testing in Shenzhen over the past six months included a "driverless car safely navigating roads alongside other road users, including vehicles and cyclists, busy intersections, unprotected turns, and maneuvering other road obstacles."

"In pursuit of this remarkable achievement for our company and a future of safer roads, we have set the bar high for our competitors," the company said in a statement, adding that the driverless testing "follows several years of technology advancement and a three-year safety evaluation process that took our team thousands of hours to complete."

Roadlink International Trading Limited added that in 2023, it would launch "a scalable, fully autonomous vehicle intelligence to meet vehicle manufacturer needs at a reduced cost," adding that "Roadlink will enable vehicles to learn, collaborate, and interact with the world in the same way humans do, without human intervention. It will make decisions in congested urban environments and make quick intelligible judgments in other new and challenging situations." 

The announcement from the autonomous technology startup is the latest step towards a possible future that could regularly see driverless cars on urban roads.

Shenzhen is leading China in autonomous driving technology development. The city has over 800 companies operating in the sector, of which 415 were founded in the past five years.

"We are delighted to have reached our latest milestone, and I must thank all of my team for their hard work throughout our challenging journey to date," said Junjie Cai, Chief Executive Officer at Roadlink.