Intel Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. are teaming up to accelerate the rise of connected cars.

The companies on Thursday announced the formation of the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium, a group that will focus on supporting the creation of cloud-based services for modern vehicles. That includes offerings such as the crowdsourced mapping platform Mobileye is developing for self-driving cars. The autonomous navigation provider was acquired by Intel last year in a $15.3 billion deal that officially closed this week.

Mobileye’s mapping platform and other cloud-based auto services rely on the data that connected cars gather through their sensors, which is rapidly increasing in volume. According to Toyota, the amount of vehicle information sent to the cloud is expected to reach 10 exabytes per month by 2025, equivalent to the amount of printed material in the Library of Congress. The auto industry must find a way to accommodate all this data and make it easily accessible to service providers, which is what the new group hopes to facilitate. 

The Automotive Edge Computing Consortium will work to establish standards for managing vehicle data. Its efforts are set to place a particular emphasis on the networking aspect of the task and edge computing, which presumably refers to the computer equipment in each car.  

Few specifics were provided, but getting the industry on the same page on any technical topic would represent a positive step. Standards spare developers the hassle of adapting their services to multiple different architectures, which encourages innovation. That’s why there are already several groups working to foster closer cooperation on auto technology.

The Car Connectivity Consortium, for instance, is building a standard intended to let drivers to unlock their vehicles with a mobile device. Meanwhile, the Intel-backed GENIVI Alliance is developing open building blocks for in-vehicle entertainment systems.

The Automotive Edge Computing Consortium has an even more ambitious goal that will require broad industry participation to reach. Securing the necessary support won’t be easy, but the group seems to be off to a running start. Besides Intel and Toyota, its roster of backers also includes network equipment giant Ericsson Inc., Japanese carrier NTT Corp. and auto parts maker Denso Corp.

Photo: Toyota