Toyota Creates Global Data Science Hub

Toyota will create a new global data science hub called Toyota Connect that aims to bring a new level of smart technology to cars.

The hub will harness Microsoft Azure cloud technologies in its quest, but these will very much remain in the background, secondary to the experiences they power.

“Toyota and Microsoft are teaming up to create a world where cars are giant smartphones that you ride in, with a virtual assistant that knows the best route to take, whom to notify if traffic will make you late for a meeting, what your blood pressure is doing during stop-and-go, and what restaurants at the next exit might be most to your liking,” the two firms said.

“[However, Toyota] aims to ‘dampen down’ technology so it doesn’t overwhelm people, leaving them hunched over their smartphones or car screens in bewilderment.”

Toyota’s North American chief information officer Zack Hicks will lead the new Toyota Connected hub.

This seems to make sense in part because the hub folds in existing Toyota data initiatives around “data centre management, data analytics, and data driven services development”, the carmarker said.

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