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Volkswagen and Google Join Hands to Develop New Battery Technology and AI

In case you're curious to know what a quantum computer is, we're glad to enlighten you: it's a computer capable of quantum computing. What? You didn't really expect us to explain quantum computing, did you? That's what Wikipedia is for (good luck with that, we had a go ourselves and came out none the wiser).
VW & Google collaboration 14 photos
Photo: Volkswagen
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Well, it turns out having one of these makes you kind of a big shot, which is why Volkswagen - a rather important company itself by everyone's standards - chose to work together with Google instead of investing in the technology on its own.

The German carmaker announced yesterday it would start a partnership with the U.S. tech giant Google to research three particular development areas. According to the statement released by the Wolfsburg-based company, these are the further development of traffic optimization, material simulations (particularly concerning EV batteries and new materials), and new machine learning processes.

As you can see, all these are aimed at the most important trends currently changing the automotive industry: connected driving, electrification, and self-driving technology. Surprised? Well, it's not like they were going to use the computer to enhance their diesel engines, right?

"Quantum computing technology opens up new dimensions and represents the fast-track for future-oriented topics,"
said Martin Hofmann, Chief Information Officer of the Volkswagen Group. "We at Volkswagen want to be among the first to use quantum computing for corporate processes as soon as this technology is commercially available. Thanks to our cooperation with Google, we have taken a major step towards this goal."

In response, Hartmut Neven, Director of the Google Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory had this to say: "Volkswagen has enormous expertise in solving important, real-world engineering problems, and it is an honor for us to collaborate on how quantum computing may be able to make a difference in the automotive industry."

All flattery aside, the collaboration does have the potential to bring advancements in any of these three fields, showing once more how the automotive and technology worlds can help each other get closer to each one's goals.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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