It was reported recently that both Amazon and Microsoft are looking at an opportunity to acquire a stake in Here, the mapping technology for self-driving cars. There has been no official comment on the matter from Amazon or Microsoft but now Daimler has confirmed that the two tech giants are indeed interested in acquiring a stake in this potentially game-changing technology for self-driving cars.
You might remember that Here was initially Nokia’s mapping business which the Finnish company sold to a consortium of German car manufacturers in December last year for about $3 billion.
A Daimler board member, the group that owns Mercedes-Benz, confirmed that both Amazon and Microsoft are interested in providing cloud computing services for the heaps of data that Here’s sensors collect for autonomous driving features.
“We are talking to Amazon, Microsoft, and many automakers,” Daimler board member Thomas Weber, who is in charge of research and development, confirmed to the Wall Street Journal. “We need a cloud provider to handle the huge amounts of data created by Here and its users. We haven’t taken any decisions yet,” he added.
Self-driving cars are increasingly bringing together traditional car manufacturers and Silicon Valley and this is deal does materialize it will only further blur the lines between the two at a time when tech companies like Google already have prototypes of their own and Apple is said to be considering a similar project.
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