German car giant Volkswagen AG (Volkswagen) has announced it has agreed to leverage Microsoft’s cloud computing options. The company will use the corporation's cloud options to develop software designed to support its ambitions to develop self-driving cars.
A global brand with headquarters in Wolfsburg, Niedersachsen, Germany, Volkswagen was founded in 1937. The largest carmaker in Europe, its automotive brands include Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania, and MAN.
Volkswagen has production plants in over 30 countries. The company has the aim to “make mobility sustainable for us and for future generations” and to do this it has made considerable investments in the development of self-driving vehicles. Microsoft's cloud options will help Volkswagen “streamline its software development efforts for self-driving cars”.
The deal is an extension of a 2018 agreement between the two companies that saw Volkswagen leverage
Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform. Harnessing Microsoft's Azure cloud will help the company facilitate software updates which will be sent directly to vehicles. Volkswagen's Car.Software Organisation division will work with Microsoft to establish a fully cloud-based Automated Driving Platform (ADP). The completed system will be able to determine road and weather conditions for autonomous vehicles and detect obstacles in a vehicle’s path. This will require the transfer of petabytes of data at any given time.
“As we transform Volkswagen Group into a digital mobility provider, we are looking to continuously increase the efficiency of our software development,” explained the CEO of Volkswagen’s Car.Software Organisation, Dirk Hilgenberg. “We are building the Automated Driving Platform with Microsoft to simplify our developers’ work through one scalable and data-based engineering environment. By combining our comprehensive expertise in the development of connected driving solutions with Microsoft’s cloud and software engineering know-how, we will accelerate the delivery of safe and comfortable mobility services,”
“This is the next evolution of our foundational work with the Volkswagen Group to enhance their transformation as a software-driven mobility provider,” added Microsoft’s Cloud + AI Executive Vice President, Scott Guthrie. “The power of Microsoft Azure and its compute, data and AI capabilities will enable Volkswagen to deliver secure and reliable automated driving solutions to their customers faster.”
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