1.1 billion US dollars! Bosch Germany builds a heavy bet autopilot sensor

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Bosch (Bosch), the world's largest auto parts manufacturer, is preparing to build a new chip manufacturing plant in Dresden (Dresden, the capital of the Federal State of Saxony, Germany) with an investment of 1.1 billion US dollars (about 1 billion euros). This will be the largest investment in Bosch history.

After the completion of the new plant, it is expected to manufacture chips for sensors for autonomous vehicles and will bring about 700 new jobs. Last year, Bosch and the famous car manufacturer Daimler jointly announced that they will start selling autonomous vehicles in 2020.

Advanced smart sensors such as MEMS sensors, cameras, radar sensors, LiDAR sensors, and laser scanners are key enablers in the development of autonomous vehicles. Since 2013, Bosch has been developing special circuits for MEMS signal processing. The newly invested plant is expected to be responsible for the mass production of these special circuits.

It is reported that this investment has received huge funding from the German government. Germany announced last year that the German government will focus on supporting local semiconductor manufacturers in the face of strong competitors from China and the United States with large government subsidies.

Bosch is the world's largest supplier of auto parts and a major global supplier of white goods such as washing machines and refrigerators. This latest investment will further indicate that Bosch will focus on developing smart technologies in the future. Bosch has been investing in the development of areas such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, as well as emerging areas such as smart agriculture. Bosch also organized a team of artificial intelligence experts this year, established a new research institute, and plans to accumulate $337.7 million by 2021.

Regarding this huge investment, Bosch has not commented. Next Monday, Bosch is expected to issue a formal joint statement with the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and the state government of Saxony (German Federal State of Saxony).

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