You’ve seen the ads for vehicles that park themselves or stop abruptly when obstacles suddenly appear in front of them. It’s no secret self-driving cars are the wave of the future, and one carmaker is taking some big steps to give drivers what they want. BMW is switching gears to focus less on sales and more on becoming an industry leader in autonomous vehicles. The company has put plans in motion to build a giant data center with the processing power needed to support self-driving computations.

The Big Data Challenge

As vehicles become more digitized, they need greater computing capacity. In order to run safely, self-driving vehicles are in constant communication with one another. In fact, autonomous vehicles need to quickly send, receive, and analyze information from thousands of other vehicles at once to make proper decisions about everything from road conditions and fuel economy to safety hazards and other factors. Most carmakers simply aren’t equipped to handle the kinds of big data these vehicles produce. BMW is taking steps to change that.

Growing the BMW Fleet

BMW has big plans to put 40 autonomous test vehicles on the road by the end of 2017. The rollout is part of a pilot project that aims to see the company’s first highly automated iNext vehicles ready for distribution by 2021. First, BMW needs to do extensive testing to make sure the vehicles are road worthy. Tests include a multitude of scenarios that simulate every type of real-life situation drivers come face to face with on the road.

During testing, each vehicle stores massive amounts of data on hard disks. Once removed from the vehicles, the disks make their way to the data center, where computers upload their contents to massive servers. BMW uses artificial intelligence to analyze the data with the goal of building cars that learn from experience and need limited human help.

Giant Data Center

To make way for the mass amount of test information gathered from its new fleet of autonomous vehicles, BMW needs to ramp up its data facilities. The company is building a groundbreaking new research and development facility just outside Munich, Germany, that is 10 times the size of its current center. Much of the center needs to be on site since there’s simply too much test data to store in the cloud or on hard copies. With the focus moving away from manufacturing, BMW is now hiring IT specialists to work with its mechanical engineers.

Driver Benefits

What does all of this mean for drivers? First and foremost, studies suggest an increase in autonomous vehicles will result in a major decrease in the number of vehicle-related accidents each year. In addition, self-driving vehicles could put more money in your pocket. Designed to optimize efficiency in accelerating and braking, autonomous vehicles typically have better fuel economy and fewer carbon emissions.

With a goal becoming a leader in autonomous vehicles, BMW’s new data center is a step in the right direction.