Mubasher: United Parcel Service (UPS) is jumping into autonomous vehicle world, with its venture capital arm UPS Ventures buying a minority stake in self-driving trucking unicorn TuSimple.

TuSimple, which was valued at $1.1 billion, has trucks operating autonomously with a human operator to take over driving.

UPS would expand a partnership with TuSimple, announced earlier in March, under which the latter hauled cargos of goods between Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona, the delivery giant’s managing partner Todd Lewis said.

UPS and TuSimple are working to add further routes to carry out self-driving tests in the Western region of the US, the San Diego startup’s CEO Chuck Price said.

The investment deal and partnership between the two companies came as postal and freight companies are pushing for more experimentation in the self-driving sector, tempted by the potential of cutting costs and boosting logistics efficiency.

The cooperation with TuSimple aims to help UPS explore ways to implement fully driverless trucks in its freight network.