As part of its bid for the future of the connected cars market, Volkswagen luxury car brand Audi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with three Chinese tech giants: Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent.

In a press release, Audi China president Joachim Wedler said, "China has become an important lead market for digital technologies. Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent are strong innovators."

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Audi China is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Audi AG. Its China-based division has a research and development arm that focuses mainly on not only connected cars, but also piloted driving, digital services, and new energy driving.

Audi said that the company is working with Alibaba to develop mapping technologies, which would include real-time traffic data as well as high-resolution 3D maps, according to Tech Node.

Audi also revealed that it is collaborating with Tencent to integrate the latter's WeChat MyCar (an auto-focused feature embedded on the social messaging service). The plan is to integrate location and music sharing services for connected cars.

Regarding its commitment with Baidu, Audi said that it wants to integrate Baidu's CarLife service with its newer car models by 2017. CarLife is an in-vehicle digital platform developed by Baidu.

Audi, along with the three Chinese tech giants, did not disclose the financial details under the newly signed MOU. Moreover, no details were revealed regarding how the technologies of the three competing tech firms would be applied to Audi's future endeavors. The recently signed deal is the very first open collaboration of an automaker with three of China's biggest tech firms.

Tagsaudi, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba, Connected Cars, Audi news, audi partners, audi china