Recently, BMW and Tencent announced that they will jointly establish a computing center in China to promote the development of self-driving cars in China. It is reported that the computing center will be built in Tianjin and is expected to start operations at the end of 2019, but neither BMW nor Tencent disclosed specific investment conditions.
Autonomous vehicles rely heavily on complex and superior data processing capabilities, and as the level of autonomous driving increases, so does the amount of data processing required. According to BMW, the new computing center will make full use of Tencent’s cloud computing and big data capabilities to provide the “infrastructure” needed to develop autonomous vehicles, helping to achieve semi-automatic driving and complete automatic driving.
At the 2019 China Innovation Day held by BMW on July 19th, BMW and Tencent reached a cooperation on establishing a “high-performance data-driven development platform”. On this platform, BMW will develop autonomous driving technology and products that are more in line with the local market according to the actual needs of China. It can be seen that the decision of both parties to establish a computing center in Tianjin is also one of the specific measures to promote the landing of a high-performance data-driven development platform.
In fact, the project cooperation between BMW and Tencent has been around for a long time. As early as September 2018, BMW and Tencent signed a strategic cooperation memorandum on digital services and technology. The two sides jointly evaluated the integration of Tencent’s digital products and services with the BMW Group’s vehicle-end and mobile-side digital platforms. Potential collaboration opportunities in areas such as infotainment and services, underlying infrastructure, security, and more. Today, whether it is autonomous driving or intelligent network, BMW and Tencent have already concluded a deep-binding partnership.
