Honda Partners with SenseTime to Accelerate R&D of Smart AI Cars with Autonomous Driving

BEIJING, Dec. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SenseTime, China's leading artificial intelligence company, announced today they have signed a long-term development agreement with Japanese car manufacturer Honda to build smart AI cars with autonomous driving. The partnership will leverage Honda's vehicle control system with SenseTime's AI algorithms to jointly create an autonomous driving solution. The two companies also announced they will work together to develop robot technology.

Rooted in computer vision technologies, autonomous driving solutions can be deployed even in the absence of high-resolution maps, allowing them to cover an even wider array of driving conditions. When a vehicle is driving without a detailed map covering its trajectory, for example, it will still be able to use the self-driving function. This autonomous driving solution offers great advantages to a variety of passenger vehicle scenarios and will also lower transducer manufacturing costs.

SenseTime Japan CEO Lao Shihong said, "Safety is the utmost priority when it comes to driving, and it also constitutes the core of our autonomous driving solution. By combining SenseTime's strengths in computer vision technologies with Honda's superior vehicle control technologies, we will together enable a safe and pleasant autonomous driving experience. Moreover, the fact that SenseTime provides core technology to a global enterprise like Honda marks a milestone."

A fast up-and-coming field, autonomous driving is levying new, extremely high standards on AI algorithms and development platforms as it requires extraordinary technologies to deliver such a solution. SenseTime, with a set of core technologies and patents for autonomous driving, has also developed chips and embedded systems for smart AI cars. The partnership between SenseTime and Honda is expected to accelerate the research of developement of smart AI cars.

About SenseTime

SenseTime is a leading Chinese artificial intelligence company focused on computer vision and deep learning technologies. Besides from its technological strengths, SenseTime has achieved commercial successes. It has powered many industries such as finance, security, smart phone, mobile Internet, robotics, and automobile with core computer vision technologies including face recognition, video analysis, character recognition, and autonomous driving. SenseTime boasts more than 400 leading customers and strategic partners including Qualcomm, NVIDIA, China Mobile, UnionPay, HNA, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Weibo, and iFLYTEK.

Following its latest US$410 million series B round of financing (which set the then-record for a single round of funding in the AI field), SenseTime has allocated more resources to developing autonomous driving, intelligent medical treatment, and deep learning computer chips.

With offices in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Kyoto, and Tokyo, SenseTime has attracted top talents around the world to build a world-leading technology company – from China, for the world. For more information, please visit SenseTime's website, WeChat and Weibo.

About Honda

Honda is a global company with a high level of know-how and skills on mobility, including automobiles, motorcycles, aircraft, power products and robotics as businesses.