Honda R&D Co, a subsidiary of Japanese Honda Motor Co, announced Thursday that it signed a five-year contract with SenseTime Group, a China-based company that specializes in artificial intelligence (AI).

The two will focus on joint research and development (R&D) in automated driving technologies by combining SenseTime's moving object recognition technologies with the Japanese automaker's AI algorithms, according to a post on Honda's website on Thursday.

Their R&D cooperation will also expand into robotics, said the post.