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China is BMW's biggest market and the German automaker knows that, to capture the country's demanding consumers, its future models must support a robust autonomous driving capability.
But building it in China is hardly possible. The success of autonomous driving relies in part on high definition mapping, a process that requires an extensive collection of geographic information. The law prohibits foreign entities from hosting data in China without local partnerships. Apple is collaborating with a Chinese company to store e-mail, SMS and other digital fingerprints of users in the country.
This seems to be one of the catalysts for BMW's new partnership with Tencent. China's tech giant, better known for WeChat and operates a fast-growing cloud computing business, announced Friday the establishment of a storage and computing platform for the German premium car manufacturer. Reuters has announced that the pair plans to launch the computer center by the end of the year in Tianjin, a port city near Beijing.
This merger comes a few months after BMW's previous expansion in the pbadenger car business. In February, Here – a Google Maps alternative partly owned by BWM – is badociated with the Chinese Navinfo navigation service, which would help Here to collect data locally. It may not be for nothing that Navinfo and Tencent both bought small shares in Here, three years ago.
As BMW becomes familiar with the road conditions in China, there is no reason why it will not apply this data to its newly launched company.
Teaming up with BMW can be a big win for Tencent, which puts more emphasis on business, while its core gaming business is under pressure from regulation. In the world of transportation, "Tencent is committed to helping automotive companies in the digital transformation," said Dowson Tong, president of Cloud and Smart Industry, in a statement.
Another relationship
BMW has already looked for another Chinese technology leader to automate its vehicles. He worked with Baidu, the leading provider of search engines in the country, with a growing number of initiatives in artificial intelligence and automated driving since 2014.
Last October, the duo reinforced their alliance after the German manufacturer joined Baidu's autonomous autonomous driving platform, Apollo. . The agreement had greater diplomatic significance during Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Germany to meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Baidu Chairman Zhang Yaqin said at the time that the agreement was intended to "accelerate the development of autonomous driving technologies aligned with the Chinese market".
BMW's relationship with Tencent, on the other hand, has already played on other fronts, including joint research on autonomous driving safety and testing involving Tencent's well-known Keen Security Lab.
Baidu and Tencent do not compete directly for their core business, but they both contribute a lot to the future of mobility, whether it's in-car entertainment or self-driving. It is not uncommon for Chinese technology rivals to target the same partner. A spokeswoman for BMW told TechCrunch that "there is no overlap in the collaboration" and the German company "cooperates with various leading Chinese companies in different fields".
Indeed, the configuration with Tencent seems more complete at first glance. The Chinese company provides "a computer architecture, tools and platforms supporting the entire process of [BMW’s] research and development of automated driving, "said the spokesperson. Regarding Baidu, she gave an example of the couple working on a self-help safety white paper involving ten other partners as well.
This could be a sideways way of saying that the Baidu alliance is more flexible. It should be emphasized that BMW is not unique to Apollo, which stands as "Android for Autonomous Cars" and now has over 100 auto partners around the world.
A large network helps to generate conversations and potential leads on the road, but keeping it that way could compromise the depth of "collaboration" – a word that is often used by publicists. As Cao Xudong, founder of the Momenta Chinese Autonomous Driving Unicorn, As was said earlier at TechCrunch, automotive collaboration "requires deep, resource-intensive collaboration [fewer partnerships] is supposed to be more. "
What about the other Alibaba heavyweight, who also wants to own the future of driving? The Chinese e-commerce and cloud computing company has partnered with the national automaker SAIC, with which it has established a joint venture called Banma, responsible for creating autonomous driving solutions. This existing marriage means that BMW will probably not use Alibaba for automation, suggested an employee of a major Chinese startup.
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