German automaker Volkswagen announced an alliance with Microsoft to develop an autonomous car. The car company will be responsible for the manufacture and design of the vehicle itself, while the technology giant will take care of the platform that allows automatic steering.
The technological foundation is Microsoft’s cloud service, Azure, which will help process and transport the high amounts of artificial intelligence data and mechanisms needed for the vehicle’s operating system to operate. The partnership has already been approved and the promise is that it will reduce development time “from months to weeks”.
Software already developed by the Germans will be used and improved to guarantee the autonomy of a vehicle.
The result of the partnership is called the Automated Driving Platform, a scalable system that can be used both for drivers who own the vehicle and in taxi fleet cars, transport by application or short-term rental system.
Long date
Previously, the two companies were already partners in the development of a system for connected cars and with digital services – what she believes to be an advantage over other automakers, who will have to create this first platform from scratch before. The virtual environment also allows for faster firmware updates and improvements in customer service.
In late 2020, the automaker also said it had put in place a plan to try to outperform Tesla in the electric car sector.
