Nio will partner with Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd to accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology.
A strategic cooperation agreement signed by the two companies on November 28 in Shenzhen will see them build an integrated hybrid cloud infrastructure for the smart car sector. They will also collaborate on the development of high-precision mapping systems for drivers while Nio will use Tencent’s cloud computing infrastructure for data storage and training of its autonomous driving technologies.
Furthermore, Tencent will help Nio to achieve a human-vehicle experience that integrates standard navigation and high-precision navigation through a map data system including standard maps, lane-level maps, and high-precision maps. Tencent’s cloud storage will also reduce the total cost of ownership of algorithm development and improve research and development efficiency.
Tencent is Nio’s largest institutional shareholder with a 9.8 percent share of the electric car manufacturer. This means it owns only slightly less than the 9.9 percent share held by Nio’s founding team.
Read: Nio Launches ET7, EL7, And ET5 EVs In Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, And Sweden
Speaking of the partnership, Nio chairman and chief executive William Li said it will result in a product experience beyond expectations.
The car manufacturer has been ramping up the development of its autonomous driving system and had planned to start rolling out the latest version of its system to owners by the third quarter of this year. However, Li recently said plans had been delayed and that the system likely won’t be introduced until later this quarter.
The technical partnership between Nio and Tencent comes just a few months after Chinese rivals XPeng and Alibaba Group Holding Limited opened a new computer center to train the software for autonomous vehicles.
