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BUSINESS TECH | Hyundai Motor, Kia invest in VAST Data for AI infrastructure. The unified infrastructure supports model training and deployment as 42dot standardizes its AI data structure and develops a Data Flywheel system, according to the announcement. Hyundai Motor Company and Kia have invested in VAST Data to support the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure for autonomous driving and robotics, deepening an existing partnership built around the South Korean automakers' production AI workloads. Announced Oct. 15, 2026, the strategic investment follows years of production use of VAST Data's AI Operating System by 42dot, Hyundai Motor and Kia's autonomous mobility division and global software center. 42dot uses the platform for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) research and autonomous driving workloads. The companies said consolidating ADAS and large language model development onto a common data platform has helped reduce data fragmentation and duplicated work as the programs expand. Before adopting VAST Data, the automakers' ADAS and language model programs relied on separate platforms from different vendors. 42dot consolidated the workloads on an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD system powered by NVIDIA Hopper and built on VAST Data's platform. The unified infrastructure supports model training and deployment as 42dot standardizes its AI data structure and develops a Data Flywheel system, according to the announcement. VAST Data said the production environment achieved a 2-to-1 data reduction rate on sensor and video data, helping 42dot expand capacity within existing data center space and power constraints. The platform supports multiple data protocols, including S3 and Network File System (NFS), allowing simulation, training and validation pipelines to access data through a shared namespace without maintaining separate copies. It also replicates AI datasets across 42dot's data center sites. Hokeun Chung, executive vice president of Hyundai Motor and Kia's Future Strategy Division, said the partnership began with the automakers as customers before they decided to invest. "Our journey with VAST started as a customer," Chung said. "Consolidating our ADAS and language model development onto one platform changed how quickly our teams can move from data collection to a validated model." He said autonomous driving and robotics require infrastructure capable of processing growing volumes of vehicle-generated data reliably and quickly. Autonomous vehicles generate large amounts of information through cameras, lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors. Processing these datasets for simulation, model training and validation places different demands on storage performance, latency and data governance. VAST Data's Disaggregated Shared-Everything architecture is designed to support these workloads by reducing data fragmentation and input/output bottlenecks in conventional high-performance computing file systems, the company said. Renen Hallak, founder and CEO of VAST Data, said the investment reflects the automakers' confidence in the platform following its use in production. Hyundai Motor and Kia's investment adds to VAST Data's investor base. The company closed a Series F financing round at a $30 billion valuation in April 2026, with participation from Fidelity Management & Research Co., New Enterprise Associates and NVIDIA. The companies did not disclose the size of the investment or provide financial terms. by TechSabado.com editors.

Hyundai Motor Group targets hands-free urban driving by 2029. By Lee Min-hyung * Published Sep 13, 2026 2:25 pm KST * Updated Sep 13, 2026 3:07 pm KST Group plans Nvidia-powered vehicles from 2028 while developing its own system. Hyundai Motor Group plans to start mass-producing vehicles capable of hands-free autonomous driving in urban areas in the second half of 2029, while launching vehicles using Nvidia's validated autonomous driving technology a year earlier. The group unveiled the road map Friday during an autonomous driving media day at the headquarters of 42dot, its autonomous driving software subsidiary in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. The strategy centers on a two-track approach: using Nvidia's technology to accelerate commercialization while developing its own autonomous driving system to secure long-term technological independence. The group plans to apply Nvidia's vehicle AI computing platform and autonomous driving software to Level 2+ vehicles in the first half of 2028 and Level 2++ vehicles in the second half. Level 2+ allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel on highways, while Level 2++ extends hands-free driving to urban roads. At the same time, the group is advancing Atria AI, its proprietary end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving system jointly developed by its Advanced Vehicle Platform (AVP) Division and 42dot. It aims to mass-produce Atria AI-powered Level 2++ vehicles in the second half of 2029. A key part of the strategy is the group's newly activated Data Flywheel, which creates a continuous cycle of data collection, AI training, validation and deployment. Hyundai Motor and Kia sell more than 7 million vehicles annually across about 190 countries, providing a potential large-scale source of real-world driving data. The group currently operates about 40 dedicated data-collection vehicles and is standardizing sensor systems across Hyundai Motor, Kia, 42dot and Motional around Nvidia's DRIVE Hyperion 10 architecture to improve data collection and utilization. "Competitiveness is determined by how much data you secure, how quickly you learn and how effectively you can reflect those results in actual products and services," said Park Min-woo, president and head of the AVP Division and CEO of 42dot. 42dot is also developing vision-language-action (VLA) models alongside its E2E technology. The company is currently validating the VLA technology through simulations and plans to begin real-vehicle testing late this year through early next year. The group plans to conduct a real-world Level 4 autonomous driving pilot in Gwangju by the end of this year in partnership with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, using the resulting data to further train and validate its AI systems. The group is seeking to narrow the gap with U.S. and Chinese autonomous driving leaders. Tesla is estimated to have accumulated about 7 billion miles of real-road driving data as of the end of last year, while Waymo and Baidu had accumulated about 160 million kilometers and 110 million kilometers, respectively, by the middle of last year. Hyundai Motor Group did not disclose its cumulative data. "Once mass production of autonomous driving systems begins in earnest, we could surpass the amount of data accumulated by competitors within five years," said Jeong Seong-gyun, a group lead at 42dot's Atria Division. Park said the group could potentially move faster but deliberately set the 2029 target to avoid rushing an immature system. "The 2029 timeline is a strategic choice to focus on our North Star while using Nvidia's technology for mass production starting in 2028," he said. * Q. * Q. * Q.