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| Hyundai Motor Vice President Hwang Seung-ho, center, poses with Deputy Governor of Guizhou Province, Lu Yongzheng, third from left, and other Chinese government officials during the opening ceremony of the carmaker's big data center in Guizhou, China, Tuesday. / Courtesy of Hyundai Motor |
By Lee Hyo-sik
Hyundai Motor Group has opened a big data center in China's southwestern province of Guizhou to facilitate the development of its connected car service platform in the world's largest automobile market.
Korea's top carmaker said Tuesday the facility will help it process massive amounts of customer data to provide safer and more efficient connected car services to Chinese motorists. It also strives to lead other digital transformation in the automobile industry.
The company also signed an agreement with China Unicom to develop and commercialize a big data analysis model to enhance its competitive edge in the rapidly-growing field. China Unicom is the second-largest wireless carrier of the world's most populous country.
Hyundai has already established extensive digital infrastructure in Korea, such as Hyundai car cloud and a connected car operating system, to produce safer and more efficiently operating vehicles.
On Tuesday, the firm held an opening ceremony for the big data center, 11 months after it broke ground. It is located in Guizhou's big data industrial district, which is also home to Apple, Alibaba, IBM and other global IT giants that operate a data processing center there.
Hyundai said it is the first multinational carmaker to open a big data center, which will help it hone its IT technologies and raise its brand value.
"We will do everything we can to successfully operate the center and set an example for other automakers," Hyundai Motor Vice President Hwang Seung-ho said.
"The facility will further enhance our expertise on how to analyze and use big data. This will significantly boost our capability to create an advanced connected car infrastructure and develop next-generation, wireless internet-based vehicles," he said. "To launch world-class connected vehicles in the near future, we have bolstered cooperation with U.S. network equipment maker Cisco."
The center will collect and systemize various data, including motorist behavior and road conditions, and then analyze it to offer more customized and convenient connected car services to each motorist.
Hyundai also plans to use the facility to collect and accumulate other types of data from social networking service platforms and other sources. It will then process data to more accurately predict market trends and consumer preferences, and introduce vehicles and customer service accordingly.
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