From left to right: Simon Hu, president of Alibaba Cloud; Liu Fei, director of Automobile Division, Alibaba Cloud; Gavin Sherry, CEO and co-founder of Autonomic; Peter Fleet, Ford group vice president and president of Ford Asia Pacific.
Autonomic, a subsidiary of Ford Smart Mobility LLC, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Alibaba Cloud that will lead to the development of the Transportation Mobility Cloud for China. The TMC is an open, cloud-based platform that will allow developers to more quickly access and analyze data from connected vehicles and better enable them to create solutions for connectivity and mobility.
“The TMC is positioned to help automakers succeed and meet growing demand for connected vehicles and mobility services in China,” said Gavin Sherry, co-founder and CEO of Autonomic. “Through this partnership with Alibaba Cloud, we will accelerate our vision of creating the largest connected vehicle offering globally, while powering smart cities and vehicle connectivity in China.”
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Sherry and Liu Fei, directior of Automobile Division for Alibaba Cloud, were signatories of the MoU in Shanghai last month. The ceremony was presided over by Ford Group Vice President and President of Ford Asia Pacific Peter Fleet and Alibaba Cloud President Simon Hu.
“Alibaba Cloud and Autonomic share the same vision of redefining the future of vehicle connectivity through technology,” said Hu. “With our new collaboration, we will be able to empower the transportation ecosystem and ultimately benefit the end users.”
The MoU also sparks an agreement between the two companies to collaborate on future projects in transportation and mobility. To aid in the collaboration, Autonomic is putting together a team specifically for Shanghai operations that will work out of its newly constructed office space.
Ford and Alibaba signed a letter of intent at the end of 2017 to explore avenues for cooperation on a variety of fronts in the years ahead.
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