Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company Fujitsu and Ford Smart Mobility’s Autonomic subsidiary are collaborating to offer worldwide automotive OEMs a fast and flexible solution to support the industry’s transformation to Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) models.
With the growth in connected cars, autonomous driving, sharing services, ride-hailing, and electric vehicles, the automotive industry is moving towards a services-led ecosystem as part of the MaaS concept. This has dramatically increased the demand for a fast and flexible mobility service platform that is capable of rapidly processing the vast quantity of data that mobility innovation generates, as well as streamlining applications’ access to that data and those vehicles. Through the new partnership, Fujitsu and Autonomic will combine their industry expertise, and digital technologies to accelerate MaaS adoption.
Making use of Autonomic’s expertise in cloud services for connected vehicles (CVs) and Fujitsu’s capabilities in technology integration and experience in the automotive space, the companies will initially deliver the transportation mobility cloud (TMC) and Fujitsu systems integration services to Ford Motor Company, followed by a rollout to other automakers globally.
Autonomic’s TMC gives automakers and developers the infrastructure to build customer experiences for CVs. Supported by Amazon Web Services, the TMC connects diverse elements of urban mobility systems, including CVs, mass transit operators, personal mobile devices, city infrastructure, and service providers, with the goal of orchestrating a safer, more efficient and sustainable transportation network. With its TMC, Autonomic delivers a flexible and secure platform that provides automakers and other developers with the building blocks necessary for connected mobility applications ranging from self-driving car routing, management of large-scale fleets, transit planning and more.
Fujitsu brings its deep experience in OEM systems integration to offer mobility technologies and services including the company’s Dracena (dynamically reconfigurable asynchronous consistent event-processing architecture) stream data processing technology. The system speeds up the deployment of mobility services to individual customers through the continuous and dynamic processing of vast quantities of IoT data from OEMs, insurance companies, and other verticalized input. As part of the collaboration, Fujitsu also will offer access to its broader digital consulting, services and solutions, as well as its global network to enhance sales.
“We are delighted to partner with Fujitsu to increase the ease and speed with which the automotive industry can offer mobility services to its customers,” said Gavin Sherry, CEO at Autonomic. “In bringing together the power of the Transportation Mobility Cloud and Fujitsu’s digital technology innovation and expertise in OEM systems integration, we can help automakers enter new markets and achieve new revenue streams.”
Rich Strader, vice president of mobility platforms and products at Ford, commented, “As we transform our business to deliver smart vehicles for a smart world, the partnership between Autonomic and Fujitsu will be a powerful enabler of our strategy. With their combined industry knowledge, technical expertise, and world-class technology, they will be able to accelerate the delivery of holistic, and genuinely useful mobility applications.”
Junichi Azuma, corporate executive officer and executive vice president at Fujitsu, added, “We are committed to this partnership with Autonomic to realize the future of mobility, where we bring together knowledge, expertise, and technology from our ecosystem partners and customers to create better solutions.”
