Hyundai Motor Group has opened a big data center in China in a move to expand into one of the world's largest automobile markets, the conglomerate said Tuesday.
The first overseas data center in Guizhou Province began operations to pursue projects to develop localized connected car services for Chinese customers, Hyundai said in a statement.
"As we face a paradigm shift in the automobile industry, it is increasingly important to collect data and process it into meaningful information for carmakers," a corporate official said.
In its road map for connected car development announced in 2016, Hyundai Motor said it will collaborate with global information technology companies to develop intelligent cars.
With the opening of its first global data center in China, Hyundai Motor has partnered with China Unicom, China's second-largest telecommunications provider, to jointly develop a predictive analytics platform to process all kinds of local data, the statement said.
Moreover, the carmaker will work with Cisco Systems Inc., a U.S. networking company, to launch a hyperconnected intelligent car with safe and advanced self-driving systems, the company said.
In partnership with Baidu Inc., China's top internet service provider, Hyundai aims to launch a car equipped with Baidu's connected navigation MapAuto and Duer OS Auto voice recognition technologies, it said.
The data center will help Hyundai build a China-focused Car Cloud, as the company plans to leverage expertise in connected car technologies acheived through years of experience in its Hyundai Car Cloud operation in South Korea, which was built in 2013.