DENSO and NEC Start Collaboration on AI- and IoT-based Advanced Driver Assistance, Automated Driving, and Manufacturing

Aiming to preserve the global environment and build a safe, secure, efficient, and fair automotive society

December 26, 2016

DENSO CORPORATION

NEC Corporation

KARIYA & TOKYO (Japan) - DENSO Corporation and NEC Corporation today announced their cooperation in the fields of advanced driver assistance, automated driving, and manufacturing, to help preserve the global environment and create a safe and secure automotive society.

The two companies will cooperate based on DENSO's high level of technology and manufacturing capability accumulated through its experience in the automotive market and NEC's artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), security, and other advanced technologies, as well as its remarkable achievements in system architecture and operation, which have been developed in its information and communications technology (ICT) services.

In the fields of advanced driver assistance and automated driving, to assess the performance of deep learning approaches to hazard prediction, DENSO and NEC will jointly develop safe and secure driving components with NEC's AI to create hazard prediction technology.

Competition to develop automated driving and vehicle electrification technologies will become more intense and interaction among automotive systems will become increasingly complicated. To develop automotive products effectively, DENSO and NEC will capitalize on the NEC Group's system developers to build a rapid and flexible product development system.

Additionally, with further advancement of the IoT, the security of corporate information infrastructure and products will become even more critical. DENSO and NEC will consider how best to collaborate to ensure greater security based on their expertise.

Moreover, the two companies will consider cooperation in manufacturing by combining NEC's various IoT technologies.

The two companies will leverage technologies, products, and systems resulting from this cooperation and openly and actively build partnerships with other companies which share the same vision, in order to help build a safe, secure, efficient, and fair automotive society for people around the world.

About DENSO Corporation

DENSO Corp., headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan, is a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology, systems and components in the areas of thermal, powertrain control, electronics and information and safety. Its customers include all the world's major carmakers. Worldwide, the company has more than 200 subsidiaries and affiliates in 38 countries and regions (including Japan) and employs more than 150,000 people. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, totaled US$40.2 billion. Last fiscal year, DENSO spent 8.8 percent of its global consolidated sales on research and development. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges.