US-based artificial intelligence (AI) driven data solutions company iMerit recently launched an automotive AI centre of excellence in Coimbatore. Speaking to Motoring Trend on the sidelines of the event, Chief Executive Officer Radha Ramaswami Basu said, “The Centre of Excellence works on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and audio-visual systems, ensuring that the perception models are safely built with high quality data under many different traffic and weather conditions. Secondly, we perform review work, quality control of the models, generative AI explainability and driving scenario analysis, to close the loop.”

The company has hired all local people from Coimbatore and nearby areas for the centre and provides high quality training to them to hit the ground running. With projects in hand, and long-term customers, it already has a workforce of over 200 people with plans to double the number in 2025. “Our Ango Hub technology gives them a huge advantage in their career journey,” said Basu.

While the company refrained from disclosing customer names citing stringent confidentiality policies, it noted that it works with OEM, Tier-1 and Silicon Valley innovators, in the automotive and drone spaces.

The new centre, iMerit’s 12th location, was inaugurated by Minister of Information Technology and Digital Services for Tamil Nadu, Dr Palanivel Thiagarajan, in the presence of employees, guests and senior executives from iMerit. The company continues to invest in developing industry-leading software and solutions for AI Data to support its customers in autonomous mobility, medical AI and technology.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Thiagarajan said, “This event signifies a critical milestone, illustrating the remarkable speed at which visionary leadership and dedicated execution can effect change. The establishment of an office within six months—from initial discussions to formal inauguration—constitutes an exceptional accomplishment. Organisations operating in sectors such as artificial intelligence, computer vision and data augmentation are poised to transform industries on a global scale. Moreover, these companies are fostering inclusive growth by advancing historically underserved communities, generating employment opportunities and equipping individuals with advanced skill sets. Notably, with women comprising 52 percent of the workforce, many serving as sole breadwinners, this model embodies innovation, social equity and empowerment—a true reflection of Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister Thiru MK Stalin’s ambition and excellence.”

Basu also noted, “Coimbatore is a historic cultural and industrial venue. It is already famous for its IT and automotive sectors. I am very pleased to bring these together with iMerit’s automotive AI vertical.  Automotive AI is our largest vertical. 60 percent of our revenues come from cutting-edge companies in autonomous mobility including trucking, ADAS and drones.

Commenting on the new centre, Chief Delivery Officer Anupam Biswas said, “Data quality is critical to AI technology, especially in computer vision and multi-sensor fusion, which are important for innovation in autonomous vehicles. The work is quite complex and we found a good mix of experienced and young talent in the Coimbatore area. This has been our fastest ramp-up in a new location. We have already hired and trained over 220 multi-sensor fusion experts on our Ango Hub software and they have started working on critical customer projects.”

The company emphasises responsible AI through ethical practices. For over 10 years, it has helped leading AI model developers across mission-critical industries like autonomous mobility, healthcare AI and high-tech.  iMerit has also been steadily growing its India business. With Automotive AI in India poised to cross a billion dollars in the next five years, the company hopes to leverage its global know-how to help the Indian industry also build a strong AI data backbone.

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Coretura, a 50:50 joint venture between Daimler Truck and Volvo Group, has entered into an engineering agreement with Accenture to accelerate the development of a software platform for commercial vehicles.

The company, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, currently employs over 100 engineers. It continues to recruit specialists in system architecture, high-performance computing and cloud infrastructure to support its roadmap, which targets the delivery of its first commercialised products towards the end of the decade.

Coretura intends to create a single software platform, language and standard for trucks, buses and other heavy-duty transport vehicles. The platform is designed to support vehicle lifecycles of more than 15 years, moving the industry away from projects that require custom software development for each new vehicle.

As the engineering partner, Accenture will support development across several areas, including:

• Electrical and Electronic (E/E) architecture
• Software abstraction and hardware integration
• Embedded software, middleware, and cybersecurity
• Functional safety and cloud infrastructure

The platform aims to provide a reusable software stack to lower costs and standardise time-to-market for global manufacturers. For fleet operators, the system is designed to allow for continuous software updates and performance upgrades delivered over the air.

Johan Lunden, CEO, Coretura, said, “Our purpose is to advance mobility at the speed of ideas, and that takes depth. Building a full-stack SDV platform demands expertise across embedded software, middleware, cybersecurity, and functional safety, all designed for vehicles with lifecycles measured in decades. Accenture’s reinvention capabilities let us move faster without compromising the standards our customers depend on. This is acceleration, not course correction.”

Rainer Oder, SDV Embedded Software Lead, Accenture, added, “Helping the industry advance software-defined vehicles is a priority for Accenture. Our landmark collaboration with Coretura is designed to change embedded software engineering for automotive platforms. Together, we are looking to solve the challenges of a fully software-defined architecture – addressing critical areas such as hardware abstraction, API management and AI-based engineering optimisations.”

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The ePlane Company has announced the completion of its full-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the e200X. Designated PT-01, the prototype has successfully integrated all core subsystems into a single structure, marking the transition from design and simulation to physical testing.

The e200X is designed as a single airframe versatile enough to serve three distinct markets – Passenger Air Taxi, Urban Cargo Carrier and Air Ambulance.

The company emphasises that the aircraft was designed to be compact, allowing it to integrate into existing urban infrastructure without requiring significant city redesigns.

Developed at the company's own facilities in Chennai, the e200X features in-house development of major components, including propellers, airframe structure, landing gear and battery pack.

This vertical integration provides the company with control over performance, manufacturing costs, and iteration speed, having reached this milestone on approximately USD 21 million in funding.

With assembly complete, the e200X will now undergo ground testing, flight testing and certification.

Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder, The ePlane Company, said, "We set out to build an electric aircraft to a world-class benchmark, engineered and manufactured in depth in India for the World.  We deliberately designed the e200X to be compact, because an aircraft that asks a city to rebuild itself around it will not solve the problem it was built to solve. The same airframe can move people as an air taxi, carry goods as a cargo aircraft, and save lives as an air ambulance, and it can do all three using the infrastructure cities already have. That combination of real capability and capital efficiency is how we intend to compete, and win, in markets around the world.”

The company’s board includes prominent figures such as Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest), Eash Sundaram (JetBlue) and Aditya Ghosh (Homage, Akasa Air). The venture, incubated at IIT Madras, has also received international recognition, including being showcased at Bharat Innovates 2026 and featured in Nvidia Founder Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote.

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Chinese technology company Xiaomi has marked a new milestone for its automotive product offering with its electric vehicle.

The company has announced a significant milestone in autonomous vehicle technology by completing the first official autonomous lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany with the Xiaomi YU7 GT, equipped with a Track Package, navigating the 20.8 km circuit without a human driver, recording a lap time of 10:29.483.

Following this performance, the Nurburgring has introduced a new official vehicle category: Autonomous Driving (under Electric Vehicles).

The Xiaomi YU7 GT autonomously navigated all 73 corners of the Nordschleife, managing 300 metres of elevation change and varying road surface conditions. The performance was driven by Xiaomi’s autonomous driving system, which integrates the Xiaomi XLA architecture and the MiMo-Embodied foundation model introduced in March 2026. The end-to-end architecture enabled the vehicle to coordinate steering, braking and power delivery in real-time, maintaining stability under high-speed and high-load conditions.

Xiaomi’s autonomous driving programme has evolved since the 2024 launch of Xiaomi HAD. The current system moves beyond simple behaviour imitation toward autonomous decision-making and deeper environmental interpretation. The company stated that the Nurburgring project serves as a critical testing ground to collect data for refining vehicle dynamics modelling, control strategy optimisation and safety redundancy mechanisms.

This achievement underscores Xiaomi’s commitment to advancing artificial intelligence in the automotive sector through rigorous real-world validation.

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QuantumScape Corporation has announced a multi-year joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co., a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co.

The collaboration focuses on advancing QuantumScape’s solid-state lithium-metal battery platform, including the development of associated manufacturing processes.

This agreement follows a successful technology evaluation period during which Honda conducted a technical study and competitive benchmarking of QuantumScape’s battery platform.

Atsushi Ogawa, Chief Operating Officer, Research Center of Excellence, Honda R&D Co, said, “QS technology demonstrated compelling and unique advantages during our evaluation. We see potential for QS technology to add value across a range of applications, including automotive, and we are excited to move forward into the next phase of our partnership.”

Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO and President, QuantumScape, added, “Honda is a leading global automaker renowned for its engineering excellence and product quality across automotive and other applications worldwide, and its evaluation represents one of the most rigorous assessments of our technology to date. This agreement reflects the growing confidence in QS solid-state lithium-metal batteries to enable safer, higher-density energy storage.”

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