The SAIC Motor Artificial Intelligent Laboratory, the first one of its kind in China’s auto industry, was inaugurated in Shanghai on June 29.

Based on SAIC Motor’s cloud computing and big data platforms and its abundant application scenarios, the newly established lab is expected to develop AI applications and offer advanced AI solutions to promote the deep integration of internet technology and the auto industry, and improve the Group’s innovation capacity and core competitiveness.

AI technology is nowadays a leading technology and is also the key driving force for the next industrial revolution. The emerging technology is now in an important period of innovative application.

The SAIC Motor AI Lab, as an important part of the Group’s core competitiveness, will make full use of the Group’s various application scenarios to focus on intelligent travel, intelligent manufacturing and intelligent driving with the aim of offering technological support to its new targets: electrification, intelligent networking, sharing and internationalization.

According to the Group’s plan, the AI lab will develop core AI technologies for SAIC Motor by paying close attention to cutting-edge AI technologies around the world, support the its subsidiaries to establish their own AI technology application teams, and offer those teams deep learning opportunities. Besides, the lab will also provide AI solutions to the technological difficulties SAIC Motor’s subsidiaries meet in their development.

Promoting innovative development by AI technologies

In terms of intelligent travel, Global Car Sharing and Rental Co. Ltd. or Global Chexiang, the largest timeshare rental company for new energy vehicles in the world and built by SAIC Motor, has covered 62 Chinese cities with 27,000 licensed vehicles and 2.5 million register members. ANJI-CEVA Logistics Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the Group, owns 120 stores in 38 Chinese cities with a fleet of 10,000 vehicles and approximately 2 million individual members.

To better serve people’s travel, SAIC Motor plans to integrate the relevant services offered by Global Chexiang and ANJI, and use its own big data and AI technologies to construct its upcoming ride-hailing company into a service platform for intelligent travel with comprehensive functions and advanced technologies.

In terms of intelligent manufacturing, SAIC Motor is actively promoting the application of AI technologies to vehicle production on a trial basis, shifting its production mode to a digitalized, interconnected, intelligent and customized system.

The LDV D90, the first massively customized sports utility vehicle in the world, was launched by the Group last year. More than 2.5 million SAIC Motor fans took part in the vehicle’s design, research and development (R&D), pricing and design of its optional equipment by the Group’s online platform.

The Group also proposes an industrial internet project involving its parts companies. By the end of this year, the group will establish three demonstration plants, whose operation mode is expected to apply to the Group’s whole supply chain so it can respond immediately to clients’ customized demands as well as produce and deliver products on time.

In terms of intelligent driving, SAIC Motor has developed two generations of an intelligent driving platform and an Internet of Vehicle platform with 5G communication technology. The Group also carried out the experimental application of intelligent driving technology in a closed field, a specified park and urban area, an underground parking lot and an expressway with testing mileage of more than 60,000 kilometers.

Sales of the internet car with intelligent driving system developed by SAIC Motor have exceeded 600,000, as a result of which numerous data related to the users’ driving and behavior are generated each day, offering stable big data for the Group’s continuing research into intelligent driving technology.

Roewe MARVEL X, with its autonomous parking function, will be on the market in September, becoming China’s first mass production smart vehicle which can be self-driving in particular scenarios. Other automatic driving technologies for high-speed vehicles or vehicles driving in urban areas will be put into commercial application next year or the following year.

Advocating technology is SAIC Motor’s culture. The Group continues to improve its R&D capacity by learning from world-class auto companies. On the other hand, SAIC Motor maintains a keen interest in the auto industry’s most advanced technologies as well as technologies from involving different fields, and continues to conduct research into cutting-edge technologies.

SAIC Motor created an increasingly stronger innovative environment with the establishment of the Seed Fund, a fund to encourage its employees to use innovation in their work. This trend was boosted with the creation of SAIC Motor Tech Day and a competition to imagine future vehicles.

Since AI technology is the core driving force of the fourth industrial revolution, SAIC Motor will explore ways to integrate big data, cloud computing and AI technologies with the auto industry to transform the group into a globally competitive and influential supplier of traveling services and products, and to make more contributions to Shanghai’s improvement of its core competitiveness and promotion of its four brands: service, manufacturing, shopping and culture.