BMW and IBM join forces to develop AI car tech

BMW has partnered with American technology giant IBM to co-develop artificial intelligence technology that will one day be featured on road cars. As part of this partnership, BMW engineers are helping to develop IBM’s Watson cognitive system, which can learn from and pass back intelligence into the physical world for integration into automotive products.

The carmaker is providing IBM with four i8s to be used as prototypes for these new artificial intelligence systems. The systems will run on IBM’s Bluemix cloud platform, which the company has said will enable Watson technology to heighten a driver’s connection with their car.

The technology uses machine learning to enable a car to improve its understanding of its driver, so it can cater its systems and cabin experience to suit their preferences. Complex voice control technology will also allow drivers to issue commands using conventional conversation, rather than set phrases, which is often the case with today’s voice control technology.

IBM’s studies also predict that the car will become increasingly able to self-heal – diagnosing and fixing its own faults and even fixing other vehicles – as well as be better at connecting with other cars to share information. This will not only help improve the self-driving ability of autonomous cars, but also make them more integrated with the Internet of Things (IoT), which connects all devices, including housing appliances and phones, together so they can share information and offer streamlined services.

“Watson is transforming how people interact with the physical world – helping to create safer, more efficient and personal experiences at home, at work and on the road,” said Harriet Green, global head of IBM’s Watson IoT business.

“With this agreement, our companies will work together to lay the foundations so that BMW’s drivers can benefit from Watson’s conversational and machine learning capabilities. Our insight shows that while the car will remain a fixture in personal transportation, the driving experience will change more over the next decade than at any other time of the automobile's existence,” continued Green.

BMW and IBM’s partnership is not the first of its kind. Continental and Oxford University are also co-working on the development of artificially intelligent technology for use in road cars.