Tesla is in the early planning stages of launching a local data center to train its self-driving AI in China, Reuters reports, citing people with knowledge of the work.
Tesla to expand its algorithm training for autonomous driving tech
Tesla is reportedly pursuing its plans to propel the global development of its self-driving tech with data from China that could be processed locally.
In this sense, Tesla has been planning to build a local data center to train the algorithm necessary for developing more autonomous driving EVs, two unnamed sources said.
Tesla will need to partner with a Chinese company to build the data center, according to one of the sources. In addition, it has reportedly talked with Nvidia about graphic processing units supply for the potential data processing center in the country.
The American EV giant seems to have made significant progress toward launching its ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving‘ in the Chinese market after Chief Executive Elon Musk’s surprise visit to the country.
The plans emerged just two weeks after securing approval for its Full Self-Driving system in China.
Gaining Chinese government’s approval
Following CEO Elon Musk’s trip to China, Tesla has reportedly obtained “conditional approval” to bring its self-driving system into the country.
Interestingly, the sources claim that the approval of the Chinese regulators is partly attributed to a supposed deal to handle self-driving data in China.
For years, the Musk-led company has had issues with its data management in China. In fact, Chinese officials even restricted Tesla EVs in key areas at times due to spying concerns related to their cameras and data management.
After reports emerged about the conditional approval, subsequent reports indicated that Tesla had finally met the government’s requirements for data management.
Primary purpose
Tesla will need to train its neural nets with an enormous number of videos from its electric cars in China in order to adapt its FSD neural nets to local roads.
The Chinese government seems concerned about these video data making it outside China.
That said, it would no longer be surprising if Tesla launched a domestic data center soon to pacify the officials’ concerns over its data management.
Notably, Tesla would not be the first automaker to use China for data storage centers. For instance, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nissan, and Mazda have already invested in data storage in China. However, unlike Tesla, none of them did so for AI system training.
