Autonomic, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ford Smart Mobility LLC, and Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to bring to China the Transportation Mobility Cloud (TMC) – the world’s foremost transportation and mobility solution for connected vehicles developed by Autonomic.
Peter Fleet, Ford group vice president and president of Ford Asia Pacific, and Simon Hu, president of Alibaba Cloud, witnessed the signing in Shanghai. Gavin Sherry, co-founder and CEO of Autonomic, and Liu Fei, director of Automobile Division, Alibaba Cloud, signed the MOU on behalf of both organizations.
Enabled by Alibaba Cloud, the TMC will serve as an open, cloud-based platform that provides standardized data and infrastructure for developers to quickly build value-added software programs for interacting with connected vehicles. This new software could help deliver a better in-vehicle connectivity and mobility experience for Chinese consumers, such as helping residents plan transit journeys, managing a large-scale fleet for a ride-hailing business, and even routing self-driving cars on busy streets.
Autonomic and Alibaba Cloud believe this partnership will be instrumental in shaping China’s transportation ecosystem by empowering multiple parties – including automakers, public transit operators and large-scale fleet operators and software developers – to enhance their vehicle connectivity and mobility experiences for Chinese customers.
Both companies also agreed to explore new collaboration opportunities in the transportation and mobility sectors, with the ultimate goal of creating a safer, more efficient and sustainable transportation ecosystem in China.
In February 2018, Ford Smart Mobility announced its acquisition of Autonomic to accelerate innovation and delivery speed in mobility initiatives like the drive toward full connectivity, micro-transit solutions and non-emergency medical transportation.
Autonomic has opened an office and is building a team in Shanghai to further develop and deploy the TMC in China.