Honda and IBM will research specialized semiconductor technology and open software solutions to address software-defined vehicle challenges
Honda Motor Co. and IBM are collaborating on the research and development (R&D) of next-generation computing technologies to address emerging processing, power and design challenges for software-defined vehicles (SDVs). The areas of joint research include specialized semiconductor technologies and open and flexible software solutions.
“The application of intelligence/AI technologies is expected to accelerate widely in 2030 and beyond, creating new opportunities for the development of SDVs,” the pair said in a press statement. SDV features can be remotely updated, which sort of reimagines a vehicle as something similar to a smartphone or any other client device that can be continuously updated with intelligence from the cloud.
“Honda and IBM anticipate that SDVs will dramatically increase the design complexity, processing performance, and corresponding power consumption of semiconductors compared to conventional mobility products,” the statement continued. However, the companies go on to state that brain-inspired computing — computer architecture and algorithms that mimic the brain’s structure and function — and advanced chipset technologies have the potential to “dramatically improve” processing performance while also decreasing power consumption of SDVs.
Honda R&D is also training its engineers to use advanced IBM Analytics tools, which is allows its engineers to uncover “unexpected” data patterns and identify new areas of research.