- The manufacturer wants to make better use of the data generated by its vehicles in China
- Local law changes will also allow Tesla to transfer its Chinese data overseas
- Tesla does not sell its Full Self-Driving system in the country
Tesla could use data from China to accelerate the development of its driver-assistance technologies and could process some data locally while sending other data overseas.
Unnamed sources assert that the carmaker has been working on plans for a data center to train the algorithm required for its FSD-equipped vehicles. Tesla wants to make better use of the data generated by its vehicles in China, where it has not yet been able to offer a complete version of its Full Self-Driving system.
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If Tesla sets up a data center in China, it will also have to do so with a local partner. Reuters reports that the company has had talks with Nvidia about acquiring graphic processing units for a local data center. Elon Musk reportedly raised the idea of a Chinese data center during a visit to the country last month.
“It would definitely be a milestone for Tesla if it rolls out FSD in China and leverages the China data for algorithm training,” said Yale Zhang, the managing director of consultancy firm Automotive Foresight. “China had played a key role in scaling up EV production for Tesla with the Shanghai factory. It would again serve a significant part in scaling up mass adoption of autonomous driving technologies.”
Tesla has stored the data collected by its vehicles sold in China at a facility in Shanghai but has long pushed to be able to transfer this data to the U.S. It may be able to do this soon as Chinese authorities are expected to relax rules on data that can be transferred overseas without in-depth security assessments as part of a one-year pilot program.
Companies registered in the free-trade Lingang Area of Shanghai, which includes Tesla, will be able to transfer data overseas without passing security reviews by the Cyberspace Administration of China which causes long delays. The change has been made in an attempt to lure extra foreign investment into the country to boost its sluggish economy.
