Porsche, Blockchain and AI: A Primer

The implementation of Artificial Intelligence systems in the automotive industry does not only extend to self-driving cars. Through a quick overview of a company like Porsche and their work in this space, this possibility may be easier to grasp.

As the old saying goes, follow the money.

In the case of Porsche, this leads to the Blockchain as well as Artificial Intelligence startups. According to the Cointelegraph piece that is referenced below, with regards to its investments, Porsche is motivated by a desire of capitalizing on the benefits that the early growth of emerging industries can bring. In addition to AI and Blockchain technology, the same article mentions heavy investments into virtual reality as well as augmented reality related startups.

Later on, what can be said to be the most important parts of Porsche’s work with emergent industries come to light, beginning with the Blockchain industry.

In this case, the highlighted partnership is Porsche’s work with a Berlin startup called XAIN, which is working on projects involved with putting the Blockchain into active usage in vehicles. In addition to this, Porsche Ventures, which is the company’s investment wing, is also a minority owner of a company that logs the history of cars on the Blockchain.

At this juncture, it would definitely be reasonable to ask: why is the Blockchain needed for such projects and what are these projects specifically doing now?

Porsche’s partnership with Xain dates back to February 27th of this year. Judging by Cointelegraph’s initial piece on the subject, what this amounts to as of now, is a new R&D wing for testing a wide range of possible use cases for the Blockchain. Overarching all of this is the fact that when this particular piece was published, Porsche was already styling itself as the first mover in terms of car companies actively testing the Blockchain.

In terms of other use cases that Porsche had already explored, the article mentions connecting the Blockchain to an app for unlocking and locking car doors, which has the added benefit of facilitating temporary access to a vehicle.

When you are able to understand how this might be done, it may be said to be easier to understand why the Blockchain is needed for such ideas.

In order to allow someone temporary access to a vehicle, the owner in question would also have to take actions like posting proof of ownership on the Blockchain, in order to allow for easy differentiation between temporary users, the true owners and aspiring hackers or other nefarious parties.

In short, in using the Blockchain, Porsche or any other car company would have immutable proof who owns the vehicle and who was given access to it directly, by the owner. If you remember, this is because Blockchains cannot be changed. Once the data is entered and verified once, it cannot be verified again.

If you are sitting there now wondering when I am going to get to how this all relates to AI, now is the time. To begin to understand AI’s involvement in Porsche’s new efforts, we need to move ahead to Cointelegraph’s article from September 26th.

In this article, the news agency quotes Porsche as saying that all of their recent investments are driven by the fact that the company believes it needs to undergo a radical shift in its current business model. What their chief conclusion seems to be on the importance of AI to their company and really any company is the belief that one day it will affect every single aspect of every single business. In stating this belief, they compare AI to how programming languages are already fundamentally shifting the way we do business.

In the end, both AI and programming languages are making certain processes obsolete and others more important. For now, for Porsche, specific examples of these processes include applications related to raising user privacy to unprecedented levels and improving self-driving cars to the point where they actually may be considered to be commercially viable.

In our next post, we will bring more examples to light in terms of the work that the company has been doing with AI in these areas, as well as others.