Hyundai, Baidu Partner on Connected Car Tech

Hyundai Motor Co. and China’s Baidu Inc. have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on next-generation connected car technologies.

Under the agreement, Hyundai and Baidu plan to co-develop a connected car service that provides real-time traffic status and live information about the user’s end-destinations based on big data, maps, artificial intelligence and portal services.

Hyundai also signed a separate deal with China Unicom, China’s second-largest telecommunications provider, to co-develop a predictive-analytics platform.

As part of the Baidu deal, Hyundai and its Kia unit will begin using the tech giant’s artificial intelligence-based Xiaodu operating system for various interior electronic modules. The partners demonstrated the technology in a Kia Sportage at the Baidu Create 2018 AI developer conference earlier this month.

Xiaodu is an open-platform system that can be used for a vehicle’s infotainment and dashboard displays, rearview mirror/camera, driver fatigue alerts and a voice-activated system for such functions as navigation, ventilation, media and door locks.

Baidu’s voice recognition technology will be coupled with Hyundai’s proprietary noise cancellation technology. The companies also plan to partner on future vehicle-to-home systems.

Hyundai and Baidu have been working together since 2015, when the companies jointly developed their “CarLife” infotainment platform. Last month, Hyundai officially joined Baidu’s Apollo open platform for autonomous driving technologies.