image: BMW

Tencent and BMW have reached an agreement to work together on a platform that’ll be used to develop self-driving technologies and products. Both companies signed an agreement at a ceremony that held in Beijing on Friday, 19 July. The platform they’ll work on is called the “BMW Group China High Performance D³ platform”, an IT platform that’ll be used for safety validation of Level 3 autonomous driving and early studies of Level 4 in BMW vehicles. BMW plans to begin production of cars equipped with Level 3 self-driving tech by 2021.

Post 2021, the “D³” platform will aid post-production development of Level 3 models and research into Level 4 self-driving tech. Thanks to this partnership, Tencent will provide IT architecture, platforms and tools required for self-driving research and development. The Chinese tech giant will also provide security expertise to ensure both parties comply with Chinese laws and regulations on data security, prevent security risks and ensure data compliance.

Tencent and BMW executives at the ceremony that marked the agreement image: BMW

“Our ultimate goal is to make the car safer than the human driver through greater automation. Safety is paramount to us. We therefore need to process a lot of data for simulation, testing and validation”. BMW Senior Vice President [for] Automated Driving, Alejandro Vukotich, said in a statement. “The launch of the D³ – Data-Driven Development – platform in China is the next big step for us along this path” he said.

BMW expects the D³ platform to be set up and ready for use by the end of this year.

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