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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Bengaluru-based design and technology services major Tata Elxsi and Japanese auto major Suzuki Motor Corporation have inaugurated the Suzuki–Tata Elxsi Cloud HIL Centre in Trivandrum, India.

The new centre is Suzuki’s first full-vehicle cloud-enabled Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) validation facility and represents the second engineering centre established under the Tata Elxsi–Suzuki partnership, following the Offshore Development Centre (ODC) in Pune.

The new facility is engineered for early-stage, full-vehicle simulation and validation through a cloud-native infrastructure. It will allow the Japanese automaker’s development and test teams to remotely access HIL infrastructure integrated with Electronic Control Units (ECUs) – reducing reliance on physical prototypes and accelerating validation cycles across R&D centres worldwide. This aligns with Suzuki’s roadmap for Software-Defined Vehicles (SDVs), reinforcing a shift toward software-led, scalable development.

Being purpose-built, the facility integrates Tata Elxsi’s domain expertise in automotive Verification and Validation (V&V), test automation and simulation, which it claims enables transformative advancements in development speed, quality and future readiness.

The Cloud HIL Centre is part of Suzuki’s global ‘SDV Right’ strategy for Electrical and Electronic (E/E) Virtual Development, which is set to play a foundational role in delivering continuous integration, faster release cycles and system reliability.

Katsuhiro Kato, Director and Executive Vice-President, Suzuki Motor Corporation, said, “The Suzuki-Tata Elxsi Cloud HIL Centre is a new base that leverages Tata Elxsi's expertise and deep experience to build an advanced and efficient development system. We hope that Suzuki will promote virtualisation to realise minimisation of energy and contribute to the development of next-generation mobility significantly."

Manoj Raghavan, CEO and Managing Director, Tata Elxsi, said, “We thank Kato-san and Suzuki Motor Corporation for their continued trust. This new Cloud HIL Centre builds on the strong foundation of our Pune ODC and marks a forward leap in our SDV-focused collaboration. It reflects our shared vision for sustainable and smarter mobility.”

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L&T Technology Services (LTTS) has launched PLxAI, a new proprietary generative AI (GenAI) framework designed to accelerate and optimise the product development life cycle for its global clients. The framework, developed by the company's in-house experts, aims to streamline the process from initial concept to post-launch support.

PLxAI leverages both generative and conventional AI to offer a comprehensive solution for developing scalable and reusable solutions across the entire product development process. It is built with a versatile architecture that makes it adaptable for both embedded systems and software development.

A key feature of PLxAI is its ability to capture and utilise existing knowledge, including an organisation's internal or 'tribal' knowledge. This helps it provide context-aware insights that enhance product engineering. The framework also integrates smart prompting and contextual intelligence to improve every stage of the process, from initial design to final validation and aftermarket support.

LTTS has already deployed over 36 use cases of PLxAI, with an additional 35 in the design phase. These applications span various stages of product development, including:

• Concept Design: Assisting with competitive analysis and technology scouting.
• Component Design: Generating specifications, diagrams and calculations.
• Validation Planning: Automatically creating Design Validation Plans and DFMEA templates.
• Failure Mode Analysis: Generating customisable FMEA documents using organisational templates.
• Digital Twin Integration: Supporting both physical and virtual testing workflows.
• Agentic Workflows: Using proactive agents to automate multi-step engineering tasks.

Alind Saxena, President & Executive Director - Mobility & Tech, L&T Technology Services, said,“This is a proud milestone for Team LTTS. The development of PLxAI by our in-house AI experts is a testimony to LTTS’ engineering and technology capabilities. It reaffirms our deep commitment toward driving global client success across Mobility, Sustainability and Tech leveraging the power of AI and Gen-AI based offerings. The enthusiasm from our global clients has been remarkable, with deployments already underway across multiple domains.”

By accelerating innovation and optimising costs, LTTS believes that PLxAI will redefine how businesses approach product development, unlocking new avenues for growth and efficiency.

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Mahindra & Mahindra, one of the leading SUV manufacturers in the country, has announced that extended its partnership with Dolby Laboratories to equip Dolby Atmos audio, to its new XUV 3XO SUV.

This move will make XUV 3X0 REVX A variant, the most affordable SUV globally at INR 1.2 million, to feature the immersive audio technology.

For the unversed, Dolby Atmos was originally developed for cinemas, which features a multidimensional sound experience that places listeners directly within the audio, revealing details with unparalleled clarity and depth.

The Dolby Atmos system is now available in the REVX A, AX5L, AX7 and AX7L variants of the XUV 3XO. Each of these models will come equipped with a six-speaker audio layout that has been meticulously tuned to the vehicle’s unique cabin architecture. The top-tier AX7L variant will further enhance the experience with an additional subwoofer for deeper bass and a truly cinematic soundscape.

R Velusamy, President of Automotive Business (Designate), Mahindra & Mahindra, stated that the introduction of Dolby Atmos in the XUV 3XO, particularly at a sub-INR 1,2 million price point, ‘redefines in-cabin audio with immersive sound for a larger group of general consumers.’

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Helm.ai, an autonomous driving AI software company, has signed a multi-year joint development agreement with Japanese auto major Honda Motor Co., to accelerate development of Honda’s next-generation self-driving capabilities, including its Navigate on Autopilot (NOA) platform.

The partnership will leverage Helm.ai’s full stack real-time AI software and large-scale autlabeling & generative simulation foundation models for development and validation. Honda will utilise it on Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for production consumer cars.

Helm.ai on its part will provide its full suite of products geared toward highway and urban autonomy, including its perception stack (Helm.ai Vision), vision-based real-time path prediction AI (Helm.ai Driver) and generative simulation models (VidGen-2, GenSim-1, GenSim-2 and WorldGen-1). The solution is powered by Helm.ai’s Deep Teaching technology, enabling real-time AI systems and offline foundation models pre-trained on large-scale, diverse, multi-modal datasets. This the company shared, can be further adapted to meet Honda’s specifications for safe, reliable and scalable deployment.

Honda’s NOA system utilises an end-to-end (E2E) AI architecture that controls everything from environmental perception to decision-making and vehicle actuation. It is designed as a partially automated system, which currently requires constant driver attention, supporting both highway and complex urban driving.

The Japanese automaker aims to scale this E2E technology across a broader vehicle lineup and is developing a system that highly assists in operating the accelerator and steering throughout the entire route to the destination, without distinction between regular roads and highways, with mass production targeted after 2027.

Mahito Shikama, Vice-President of Software Defined Vehicle Business Supervisory Unit at Honda Motor Co, said, “This joint development supports Honda’s goal of realising safe and affordable automated driving technologies for our global customers. Through our collaboration with Helm.ai, we are advancing the development of AI technologies that enhance the real-world applicability of autonomous driving systems, bringing us closer to a future with zero traffic collision fatalities.”

Vladislav Voroninski, CEO and Founder, Helm.ai, said, “We look forward to entering the next phase of production development with Honda, as they expand their in-house efforts to deploy cutting edge autonomous driving technologies in mass market vehicles. This joint development highlights our shared vision of enabling AI-powered mobility at scale.”

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