Enormous schools of fish are amongst the most jaw-dropping sights in the natural world, with thousands of tiny fish synchronizing their behavior and movement to find food, migrate, and escape predators.

A team of researchers from Harvard University has mimicked this pattern of behavior with a robotic swarm, dubbed Blueswarm, that synchronizes its movement without external control. Their research is published in Science Robotics.

Shenzhen-based Huawei, with its main network business facing global pressure after the U.S. designated it a threat to national security, is targeting new growth areas such as transport.

Huawei is running a pilot project for autonomous vehicle road networks in China.

On a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) road in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, a self-driving bus travels back and forth, making stops, swerving past obstacles, accelerating and decelerating, based on information it constantly receives from its surroundings. Embedded in the road, traffic lights, street signs and other infrastructure are sensors, cameras and radars that talk with the vehicle.

The site, used by telecom-equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co. and partners, is part of China’s first national project for intelligent and connected vehicles. The country wants to make traffic smoother and safer, while ensuring local champions like Huawei benefit from the enormous opportunity of supplying the infrastructure.

“Autonomous driving is an irresistible trend, but any isolated vehicle alone can’t nail it,” Jiang Wangcheng, a president at Huawei’s information and communications technology business, said in an interview. “The only solution is to get more information from the roads.”