Chinese-owned tech companies may be on the nose with the Trump Administration, but that hasn’t stopped the U.S. Postal Service teaming with one to test shipping using self-driving trucks.

The trial involves the USPS shipping mail and packages in Texas using self-driving trucks designed by TuSimple.

TuSimple was in the news recently when reports emerged in the Chinese press that Amazon.com Inc. was in talks to acquire the company. Nothing has been heard on those rumors since, but details of the mostly under-the-radar company have come to light, and they are impressive.

Developing artificial intelligence and computer vision technology for self-driving trucks, TuSimple stands out because it already has self-driving trucks on the roads hauling freight. The company has 12 contracted customers and is in the process of expanding its on-road fleet to 50 self-driving trucks.

In the USPS pilot, which will initially run for two weeks, custom Peterbilt trucks developed by TuSimple will haul five round trips between Dallas and Phoenix. The trips will total more tha 2,100 miles and 45 hours of driving, with the trucks traveling through three states: Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The first haul under the pilot program left Phoenix this morning.

The self-driving trucks will not be without supervision. A safety driver will be behind the wheel to intervene if necessary and there will be an engineer riding in the passenger seat, according to Reuters.

“The work with TuSimple is our first initiative in autonomous long-haul transportation,” USPS spokeswoman Kim Frum said. “We are conducting research and testing as part of our efforts to operate a future class of vehicles which will incorporate new technology.”

While not disclosing the cost of the trial, Frum added that no tax dollars were being used.

Although it’s Chinese-owned with a corporate office in Beijing, TuSimple has its main development office in Tucson, Arizona, with another office in San Diego. Investors in the company include a mix of Chinese and U.S. firms, including Nvidia Corp., ZP Capital, Sina and Composite Capital.

Besides the publicity of working with the USPS, TuSimple gains additional experience hauling freight. “Performing for the USPS on this pilot in this particular commercial corridor gives us specific use cases to help us validate our system and expedite the technological development and commercialization progress,” Xiaodi Hou, TuSimple’s founder, president and chief technology officer, said in a statement.

Image: TuSimple