BEIJING - Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-hailing service, said Friday that it has raised $500 million for its autonomous vehicle business from an investment group led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank.

The investment will help advance the development and deployment of automated vehicles in Didi's ride-hailing fleets.

This has been the largest single overseas financing obtained by the autonomous vehicle business of Didi Chuxing, since it was upgraded from a department to a registered firm in August 2019.

The company has been operating test vehicles in the Chinese cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou and in the state of California in the United States.