Pony.ai, funded by Toyota Motor Corp, announced on Sunday that it had secured a taxi license in China, allowing some of its autonomous vehicles to begin charging fees.

The company claimed to be the country's first autonomous driving company to do so.

The firm announced that it had been granted a license to operate 100 autonomous vehicles in Guangzhou's Nansha neighborhood.

Pony.ai also received authorization last year to begin offering paid driverless robotaxi rides in Beijing and has already started offering rides.

However, in Beijing, rides are being offered on a trial basis in a considerably smaller industrial zone, according to a Pony.ai representative.

According to the company's announcement, in Nansha, it will begin charging fares with autonomous cars over the district's 800 square kilometers. Pony.ai's app allows passengers to summon and pay for rides.

Pony.ai said it will first deploy cars with safety drivers but plans to phase them off "over the short to intermediate time frame,"

The news comes when a slew of firms is investing billions of dollars in autonomous technology to establish a foothold in the future of mobility.

Pony.ai has been testing its driverless technology on public highways in California cities Fremont and Milpitas and China's Guangzhou and Beijing.

In China, a slew of local startups is vying for attention. Momenta and SAIC recently received formal authorization to conduct a trial of their robotaxi service in Shanghai's Jiading neighborhood, following a similar step by Nissan-owned Weride in Guangzhou.

In Shenzhen, Alibaba-backed AutoX is also testing robotaxis in a highly crowded metropolitan area with a large volume of pedestrian and moped traffic, accompanied by safety drivers.