Continental Wants to Fast-Track its R&D in Artificial Intelligence Tech

Tech company Continental partnered with University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in order to fast-track and strengthen its research and development (R&D) in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.

Continental said that the partnership focuses on research topics such as "optimizing the speed of neural networks" and "protecting AI systems in safety-critical applications." The two parties intend to integrate the research results into series production as quickly as possible.

"We are joining forces with the world's leading AI researchers. Building on the momentum of our strategic partnerships with the University of Oxford, DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence) and other AI thought leaders, we have signed a five-year agreement to be members of the UC Berkeley DeepDrive (BDD) center," said Continental Corporate Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab Head Demetrio Aiello.

Continental and UC Berkeley will test AI algorithms in safety-relevant systems by making the said tech more reliable and ensure that it will work properly once it is integrated in vehicles. Researchers are also looking at how to operate AI applications in memory-efficient way. This is to accelerate and optimize neural networks, which will allow easier implementation and integration of AI tech in vehicles.

Continental first established its AI team in 2015. Since then, the company has participated in joint research activities. Some of the research partnership of Continental are the following: NVIDIA and Baidu, University of Oxford, the Technische Universität Darmstadt, the DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (India).