Key Highlights
- Automobiles are becoming the main concentration of technology providers, including cloud providers.
- Most auto manufacturers are moving in the same direction, offering a wholly connected, software-defined product, albeit some more slowly than others.
Cars have become defined highly by computer automation and less by horsepower or wheelbase. These days, most performance enhancements are made at the software level. Significant modifications that need mechanical changes are mostly a thing of the past.
How Will Enterprises Benefit From These Innovations?
Cars will be primarily distinguished by the cloud computing services that support them. For instance, Apple Car Play was a convenient service offering another way to use iPhone to play podcasts or use voice response for text messages. Now, these systems monitor driving systems, improve performance, and deal with safety issues.
The core system that defines the car will be much like the operating system that defines the cell phone. Instead of decoupled systems interacting to create a driving experience, unified systems will operate within a typical operating environment.
The back end of the system will connect with cloud providers to do the more advanced “off-car processing,” like scrutinising data from car sensors to determine if a maintenance event is likely to happen soon, using AI and petabytes of learning data to make that call.
It could even notice that the driving behaviors have changed, indicating that some health issues may need attention.
The key is that the car will become an edge computer, with lighter-weight processing occurring on board related to the vehicle’s safe operation. The more impressive stuff will occur on the back-end cloud providers that house vast amounts of data and process-intensive AI and analytics systems.
The advantage for enterprises will be self-driving trucks that can carry loads over long distances and become part of a more anticipated and reliable supply chain. Moreover, maintenance and fuel costs should drop; even trucks driven by humans should offer superior safety, efficiency, and comfort.
