Samsung to enter self-driving car space with $300 million investment
By Robin-Leigh Chetty 15 September 2017 | Categories: newsSamsung is a company with an interest in almost every area of technology. That scope though, is set to increase even further, as the South Korean organisation recently announced its intention to enter the autonomous vehicle market. To that end, Samsung has stated that an initial fund of $300 million has been created to make a number of investments into auto and motoring related startups and technologies.
The fund will exist within Samsung's Harman division, which is an audio specialist the company acquired late last year. The current goal outlined for the fund will be to aid the creation of the technological backbone for automotive platforms, which is said to include infotainment and self-driving cars. The company has even gone so far as to secure the rights to test out its solutions on California's roads.
While this venture is still in the embryonic stage, it looks like Samsung wants to be behind the technology powering the autonomous vehicles of the future, and won't necessarily be building its own vehicle. That said, the Samsung Galaxy car does sound intriguing if ever brought to fruition.
As for the technology powering its motoring platform, Bixby could play an integral role, with Samsung pushing forward with the development of the AI solution. With Bixby available in a handful of Galaxy mobile devices, and rumours of a Bixby speaker in the works, having it in a connected car makes a lot of sense.
We will, however, have to wait and see what this $300 million investment will yield.
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