General Motors Co. will work with a Chinese auto maker on a $5 billion initiative to overhaul how it creates cars for developing markets, a move that represents the U.S. auto maker's first major development project in China to address global markets.

The Detroit auto maker plans to work with SAIC Motor Corp., one of its Chinese joint-venture partners, to develop a common blueprint, or architecture, that can be tailored for specific styles or regional markets. Their goal is the same one rivals Volkswagen AG, Renault SA, Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. are spending billions of dollars to achieve.

SAIC, a state-owned company that is a major car maker in China, is looking to become more viable on the global stage. Having aligned with the biggest auto makers in the world, including Volkswagen, SAIC's multi-billion-dollar joint venture with GM could help the Shanghai-based company finally create a car capable of appealing to a broader set of car buyers.

China's Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. also is expanding a joint venture with Volvo Car Corp. to design a subcompact car that meets safety and quality standards in Western markets where Chinese brands have struggled to gain a foothold.

At GM, the planned platform investment is equivalent to what the auto maker is spending on its current stock buyback program, and to the money it has earmarked for updating its U.S. manufacturing operations through 2018.

The auto makers that first gets the emerging-markets concept right could impact the industry pecking order for decades to come. The industry currently sells about 85 million vehicles a year around the world, the majority of which are in China, Western Europe and the U.S.

The plan, scheduled to be disclosed on Tuesday by Chief Executive Mary Barra, comes as GM is spending about $9 billion annually on capital expenditures. It has earmarked $14 billion to revive Cadillac and $16 billion to maintain leadership in China.

GM President Dan Ammann said in an interview the Detroit auto maker primarily will sink its $5 billion emerging-markets investment into operations in China, India, Brazil and Mexico. Its joint ventures in China—the world's largest market and where GM holds 14% market share—will contribute additional investment beyond the disclosed outlay, but Mr. Ammann didn't disclose the size of that additional commitment.

GM's plan calls for the single new platform to replace a cluttered network of vehicles it currently markets. Mr. Ammann declined to say how many architectures will be consolidated, but he noted vehicles like the Chevrolet Aveo will move to this program. In India, for instance, GM is now using six different underlying architectures—a model that the company admits is extremely inefficient.

If the effort succeeds, the $5 billion global vehicle project could be responsible for 2 million in annual vehicle sales, Mr. Ammann said, or roughly 20% of its current volume. To ensure those sales are profitable, GM has to confront the problem that small cars equipped with the latest safety gear, fuel-saving components and technology, deliver far lower margins than the large sport-utility vehicles and pickups that GM sells in North America.

GM and others expect developing markets in Southeast Asia and South America to account for a hefty share of industry growth in coming years. That means they must predict how a patchwork of regulations and consumer tastes in markets around the world could converge in the next decade.

But the exercise is necessary if GM is going to achieve a decades long quest to simplify its sprawling business. Ford has been consolidating its architectures since former chief executive Alan Mulally took the helm in 2006. The Dearborn, Mich., auto maker now works off nine global vehicle platforms, down from 27 in 2007.

GM, in contrast, has 25 different vehicle architectures that it uses to build cars around the world, vastly more than its goal of 15 by 2020 or four by 2025. GM has in the past set out to make global products, but those efforts have been disrupted by bankruptcy or regional fiefs that demand ultra-tailored products for particular markets.

That team needs to figure out how to make one common family of products for markets as diverse as India, China and Brazil. Chinese regulators are pushing for high-end vehicle advances in the near term, for example, while Indian rule-makers are seen as very far behind, not requiring bags in many cases.

Mr. Ammann said there is no single vehicle currently sold that GM considers a benchmark for a leading global market vehicle. Some emerging-market car programs, such as Tata Motors' Nano or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV's Cinquencento, haven't met initial customer expectations.

"It starts with what we call a profound understanding of the customer," Mr. Ammann said. GM will conduct customer clinics, surveys of dealers and forecasts of demographics. "This is really about meeting the rapidly changing needs in these markets."

Write to John D. Stoll at john.stoll@wsj.com

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