Volkswagen Group teams up with Microsoft to accelerate the development of automated driving
Microsoft has been working with the Volkswagen Group since October 2018 when they first discussed plans to have an automotive cloud. Then in February 2019 they announced a joint development of an ‘Automotive Cloud’.
With access to the US technology giant’s cloud-based Microsoft Azure platform, Volkswagen (VW) will be able to move quickly into autonomous driving and Azure will be able to handle the huge amount of data generated.
VW had already announced that it plans to invest a whopping €27 billion (USD42bn) in digitisation by 2025 as part of efforts to take its software development in-house. Soon, electric powered cars like the VW ID.4 will be ready with autonomous drive software.
Eventually you will see Ford electric powered vehicles also using this technology as both Ford and VW became equal owners of the Argo AI in July 2019 which is specifically an autonomous vehicle.
Volkswagen Group further strengthens its capabilities in the development of automated driving (AD) solutions. The Group’s software company Car.Software Organisation will collaborate with Microsoft to build a cloud-based Automated Driving Platform (ADP) on Microsoft Azure and leverage its compute and data capabilities to deliver automated driving experiences even faster at global scale.
With ADP running on Azure, Car.Software Organisation will increase the efficiency of the development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and AD functions for passenger cars across Volkswagen Group brands. Volkswagen and Microsoft have been strategic partners on the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud since 2018, which will span all of Volkswagen’s future digital services and mobility offerings.
Build AD and ADAS solutions faster with one development platform
ADAS and automated driving vehicles can help improve passenger safety while reducing congestion and making mobility even more comfortable. Building these solutions requires large-scale computational capabilities.
Petabytes of data from road and weather conditions to obstacle detection and driver behavior need to be managed every day for the training, simulation and validation of AD functions. Machine learning algorithms that learn from billions of real and simulated miles driven are key to connected driving experiences.
Car.Software Organisation will address these challenges together with Microsoft by simplifying the developer experience and leveraging the “learnings from miles driven” through one database comprising real traffic data from the Group’s vehicles as well as simulation data.
Microsoft Azure compute, data and machine learning services as well as Microsoft’s know-how in agile software development will enable one development environment for Car.Software Organisation’s developers globally.
ADP will help reduce the development cycles from months to weeks and efficiently manage the huge amount of data. The companies will start working on ADP immediately and are looking to continuously expand the functional scope of the development platform.
Both companies intend to enable technology partners to build tools and services that integrate with the platform to enhance the creation of AD and ADAS solutions.
Volkswagen Group increases in-house development of software in the car
The Volkswagen Group is driving forward the digitalization of the car rapidly. By 2025, the Group will invest around 27 billion euros in digitalization and increase the proportion of in-house development of software in the car to 60 percent from 10 percent today.
Deploy and operate ADAS and AD solutions with Volkswagen Automotive Cloud
The first VW.AC connected test fleets are expected to hit the road in 2021. Production rollout is planned for 2022. Car.Software Organisation will integrate ADP and VW.AC as the company moves toward further integrating its software solutions, tools and methods to empower its engineering teams, customers and partners globally.
