Toyota, Intel, others to form auto big-data consortium

Swiss telecom equipment maker Ericsson, Japanese auto parts maker Denso Corp and telecoms firm NTT DoCoMo are also part of the group, called the Automotive Edge Computing Consortium.

The consortium aims to use data to support emerging services such as intelligent driving, creating maps with real-time data and driving assistance based on cloud computing, Toyota said in a statement.

Similarly, real-time data from Audi, BMW and Mercedes cars will be linked by the mapping company HERE, and BMW and IBM Watson are teaming up via the CarData cloud network. And last week, Toyota and smaller rival Mazda said that they would work jointly on producing electric and connected cars.

For more on the alliances and competition in the crowded field of autonomous driving development, see this interactive graphic and this story.

As cars are equipped with new capabilities, from staying in lanes to driving themselves, they are using and producing vast amounts of information, including where they drive.

Data volume between vehicles and the cloud is expected to reach 10 exabytes per month around 2025, about 10,000 times larger than at present, Toyota said.