Samsung is betting $300 mn on the aftertime of autonomous vehicles

as informed in Samsung endeed has licenses to do on-road testing of autonomous vehicle tech and hardware in both South Korea and California. At the heart of the new business unit is Harman, the American connected vehicle firm Samsung acquired in March for $8 billion. Harman manufactures motorcar infotainment systems, along with "connected car-safety" technologies, involving rear-view cameras. Together, the 2 groups going to focus on emerging technologies which underlie self-driving systems, involving high-performance computers, sensors and artificial intelligence. Samsung has previously invested in a range of startups included in autonomous driving and sensors out of other investment funds.

Samsung makes a $300 mn push into self-driving cars

Samsung is making a large push into the nascent self-driving motorcar market with a new $300 mn fund and a dedicated business unit for emerging autonomous technology, the firm reported today. That new unit going to be built inside Harman, the audio tech giant which Samsung acquired for $8 bn late final year. Its goal going to be to build a highest to bottom technological platform which automakers could incorporate into their cars to run everything from infotainment to self-driving capabilities. In which sense, it sounds like Samsung wants to be further than just an open-source competitor to Mobileye. It too sounds a lot like the copartnership model which Waymo, the previous Google self-driving motorcar project, has been pursuing since late final year.

Samsung has a $300 mn fund aimed at smarter cars

as declared in Samsung's own recent acquisition, Harman, is too taking steps to establish itself in the automotive market. The Harman SBU going to work closely with the Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center Intelligent Machines team to pull together user electronics and autotechnology, and to develop key technologies for safer, smarter, connected vehicles. The allocation of these resources and renewed focus on the automotive sector is designed to give Samsung the confidence to get in what is becoming an increasingly crowded market -- and vehicle tech isn't the company's mainstay. But as Dinesh Paliwal, President and CEO of Harman, says: "There is endeed a high request for ADAS [advanced driver assistance systems] solutions, and which request is rapidly growing with the advancements in connected cars and autonomous driving." Samsung wants in on the action, and is happy to put its money where its mouth is.

TRANSPORTATION AND LOGISTICS BRIEFING: Waymo's self-driving truck ambitions — Samsung to invest $300 mn in auto tech — Tesla to unveil semi-truck on Oct. 26

Get the toll free highest five Disruptive Trends Shaping Transportation & Logistics report and begin receiving our brand new Transportation & Logistics newsletter. Waymo is widely considered a leader in emerging self-driving technology, but, like others in the self-driving motorcar race, is continue probing new business models which probably enabled with the disruptive technology. In an interesting twist, Krafcik told which Waymo may premier commercialize its self-driving tech in the trucking and logistics space, rather than out of ride-hailing. However, Samsung and Nissan have each been testing their self-driving cars separately in California, suggesting which the 2 aren't working in concert to bring self-driving tech to Renault-Nissan vehicles. However, it may face challenges in selling its tech to automakers which endeed have extensive self-driving motorcar projects underway, or have existing partnerships with other self-driving tech providers like Waymo.

collected by :Molly Tony