Valeo to open centre for automotive artificial intelligence research
19 June 2017
19 June 2017
Vehicle technology specialist Valeo is to open a research centre for artificial intelligence and ′deep learning’ with the aim of developing systems for automotive use.
Due to the development of autonomous vehicles, manufacturers and suppliers are being pushed into finding new alliances from both inside and outside the industry in order to be able to compete. Vehicle, aftermarket and technology companies are coming together to pool their talent and develop systems that can allow vehicles to work with little or no human interaction.
The company believes artificial intelligence and deep learning are increasingly becoming key drivers for the challenges of the automated cars of tomorrow. It is believed systems will feed data to a machine so it can analyse and adapt to new situations in order to replicate the learning and thinking functions of the human brain. This includes areas from high performing perception sensors for vehicle context understanding to advanced automated driving functions in complex environments, smart interaction with users and learning capabilities through connected cars.
Valeo is the latest to dedicate resources to this effort, with its new centre, called Valeo.ai, based in Paris. The company plans to employ 100 researchers at the base by the end of 2018, and will draw on connections to the academic world, the start-up community and the company’s own research and development centres.
In a statement, Jacques Aschenbroich, chairman and chief executive officer of Valeo, comments: ′In light of today’s autonomous and connected vehicle challenges, Valeo, as a technological leader, is at the leading edge of scientific thought on artificial intelligence and deep learning. With Valeo.ai, our goal is to create a first-class research centre that partners with the world’s best laboratories in the field and actively contributes to the development of applications for the car of the future. Located in Paris, it will welcome our scientific partners as well as researchers and engineers who are eager to join us in this major scientific and technological adventure.’
The news comes as Apple announces that it is to take on ′the mother of all AI projects‘ as it seeks to gain control of the self-driving system market, through its powerful expertise in both software and hardware.
Meanwhile, in an example of technology companies diversifying into different markets, Germany’s Kuga, a developer of robotics with products used in production lines at Tesla and Porsche facilities, is looking to develop ′personal assistants’ with the help of Midea, the Chinese appliance maker that acquired it for €4.5bn in 2016.
With the company seeing the consumer market growing rapidly, it believes there is an opportunity to develop robots for this market, and could develop intelligence that would be used in elderly care or for household tasks.