A number of tech and automotive firms including Intel, Toyota, and Ericsson announced the creation of a consortium that will focus on building a “big data” ecosystem for self-driving cars. The consortium will also focus on technologies such as driver assistance and using real-time data.
Other partners in the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium (AECC) include Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo, and auto parts maker Denso. The automaker said that data traffic between vehicles and cloud servers is predicted to hit 10 exabytes per month by 2025, creating the need for “new architectures of network and computing infrastructure” to handle it.
The consortium will also “define requirements and develop use cases for emerging mobile devices with a particular focus on the automotive industry, bringing them to standards bodies, industry consortiums and solution providers.”
Last Wednesday, Intel announced plans to place more than 100 self-driving vehicles on the roads. These vehicles could conceivably rely on
On Wednesday Intel revealed plans to put over 100 self-driving vehicles on roads, which could conceivably rely on cloud infrastructure launched by the new consortium.
The AECC announcement highlights a potential obstacle for Apple’s self-driving car plans. While the company is currently only testing a platform on a handful of existing vehicles, a commercial launch —whether through a self-designed car, or in partnership with others —could require vast amounts of high-bandwidth infrastructure on top of its modern data centers. It’s unlikely to turn to third parties however, given its policies towards data security.
Apple might be able to reduce cloud demands with local processing and machine learning, something CEO Tim Cook hinted at in a recent interview.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider