BMW signed a memorandum of understanding with tech giant Baidu to join its autonomous driving platform Apollo as a board member.

The deal was signed during a visit by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to Germany.

After years of internal development, Baidu last year decided to open its autonomous driving technology to third parties, a move it hopes will accelerate development and help it compete with U.S. firms Tesla and Google project Waymo.

"With BMW Group and Baidu joining forces we can significantly accelerate the alignment of specific requirements and technological approaches to turn the vision of autonomous driving into reality for Chinese customers very soon," BMW development chief Klaus Froehlich said in a statement Tuesday.