Strong Will for the Future
Hyundai Motor Group has opened its first big data center in China to facilitate the development of its connected car service platform. Although the group has been struggling in the Chinese market due to the government’s retaliation over the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system, it is seeking to dominate the Chinese market with future cars in the long term.
Hyundai Motor Group had an opening ceremony of the carmaker's big data center in the Guian New Area of Guizhou, China, on September 26, 10 months after Hyundai Motor Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun and former Communist Party chief of Guizhou and current chief of Chongqing, signed a strategic partnership agreement for big data center in November last year.
There are two reasons that Hyundai Motor Group estabsliehd its first big data center in China. First, the group is seeking to develop connected car service platforms in China, the world's largest automobile market. Second, it will analyze a lot of social data to use them in research and development and marketing campaigns.
China is the country which is making the most progress in information communication technology (ICT), especially big data. Moreover, the Chinese government is advancing connected car technology and infrastructure. A connected car is a car that shares information with other cars and roads. So, it is hard to be advanced when the government doesn’t have a will to build related infrastructure. China is focusing on the investment in “Vehicle to Everything,” which allows a car to communicate with social infrastructure, and car could technology, which applies cloud computing function to cars. Therefore, it is a good place to develop and advance connected car service technologies.
An official from Hyundai Motor Group said, “We are struggling in the Chinese market now but it is an inevitable task for us to develop future car technologies in China, the world’s largest automobile market. We are planning to focus on our R&D capabilities in connected car operating system (ccOS), connected car service platform (ccSP) and car cloud to dominate the global standards of connected car technologies.”
The new big data center will analyze massive customer data and social data. It plans to re-produce meaningful information with big data and use them to predict the market in China. To this end, Hyundai Motor Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China Unicom on the same day to develop and commercialize a big data analysis model. China Unicom is the second-largest wireless carrier in China which has secured 400 million customers.