Minda iConnect Pvt Ltd, the connected vehicle and telematics arm of Uno Minda Group, and Microsoft India on Friday said they will collaborate to drive connected vehicle technologies for the automotive industry in India.
With this collaboration, Uno Minda and Microsoft aim to enhance in-vehicle connectivity and efficiency to provide an enriched driving experience to automotive users in the country, the company said.
As part of this collaboration, Microsoft and Minda will work on technologies for both the passenger car and commercial vehicle automobile manufacturers to significantly enhance customer experience across – safety, security and entertainment.
Both companies will work together to identify the needs of the end customer via the connected vehicle technologies and work with automobile companies, it said.
"This partnership puts in place the right building blocks as we aim to connect millions of vehicles across passenger and commercial segments," Ravi Jakhodia, Chief Executive Officer, Minda iConnect, said.
Microsoft will help Uno Minda develop technologies that will bring together artificial intelligence, advanced machine learning, and the Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities on the Microsoft Azure cloud, the company said.
These technologies will help create highly personalised, smart and safer driving experience for vehicle drivers, it said.
“Minda iConnect is a pioneer in developing connected vehicle technologies in India. We believe that the power Microsoft Azure cloud and Azure IoT services will bring secure and faster connected experiences to vehicle drivers in the country," Rajiv Sodhi, Cloud and Enterprise Lead, Microsoft India, said.
Both companies will work together to identify the needs of the end customer and work with automobile companies to meet these needs better via the connected vehicle technologies.
Some of the key development areas in the next two years will include real time benchmarking of driving behavior, real time coaching, vehicle to vehicle, and vehicle to infrastructure communication.
In addition, fleet owners will be enabled to better incentivize their drivers to improve both fleet efficiency and driver safety, the companies said.
A big focus will be to bring the right ecosystem partners onto the platform to provide a seamless vehicle management experience for end customers.
For instance, seamless road-side assistance, insurance renewals and usage based insurance would be some of the upcoming features.
With 4G networks now becoming prevalent in India, audio, video and news content with connected vehicle programme will be some of the key highlights for the end consumers, the companies added.