BMW and Chinese gaming company Tencent announced their collaboration for a new computing center in China that will be involved in the development of autonomous-driving technologies.
More specifically, the two companies will work together to build a platform, which BMW will use to develop automated driving technologies and products that are better suited to China’s local traffic conditions. The name of the platform is D3, short for Data Driven Development.
The new computing center, which is set to commence operations by the end of the year, will provide vehicles with data-crunching capabilities to render them capable of semi-autonomous driving and eventually fully autonomous.
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“China is at the forefront of automated driving development, and we aim to play a pioneering role in this area,” said Jochen Goller, CEO of BMW Group China. “The collaboration between BMW Group and Tencent will set the benchmark for cross-industry cooperation. The BMW Group China High Performance D³ platform will allow us to develop autonomous driving solutions that represent a better fit for the specific driving scenarios in China.”
Tencent’s cloud computing and huge database will provide BMW with the infrastructure required to develop self-driving cars. BMW plans to introduce Level 3 semi-autonomous models in China by 2021, which requires massive computing power for real-time analysis of data coming from the road and traffic conditions.
The need for high-end data-crunching capabilities is essential for autonomous driving, as the system relies on artificial intelligence to help the cars learn from experience and eventually drive themselves without requiring intervention from a human driver.
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