Mercedes to continue AI advancement with Abu Dhabi firm G42

Formula One team had entered into agreement with technology company earlier in year

Toto Wolff, team principal and CEO of Mercedes F1 team, and Peng Xiao, CEO of Abu Dhabi-based G42. Photo: supplied

Mercedes aims to remain at the forefront of technological progress in Formula One, with the help of Abu Dhabi-based artificial intelligence organisation G42.

The German brand had entered into an agreement with the company before the start of the 2023 F1 season. Their partnership has now turned into a multi-year strategic deal.

The focus of the project is about gaining every possible performance benefit on the track for Mercedes through G42’s AI and big data analytics capabilities, while also helping in understanding the power of AI.

Peng Xiao, chief executive of G42, said: “I believe the highest pursuit in my field is to better understand human behaviour. To better ultimately understand our own human behaviour and our mentality, you have to go into domains where things are better controlled and there are boundaries, and in this example, sports.

"In particular a high-stress environment where you are driving a car. If you can look and go deep to understand the behaviour and driver behaviour, I believe it is so exciting and we can translate this into broader domains of human behaviour, which for me is the highest purpose that AI can serve.”

Toto Wolff, team principal and chief executive of Mercedes, said: “You can see in a world of machines, the human connection is important. As you say, we are an engineering and data driven business. The quicker we learn, the better we are.

"We are in a relative game and an honest sport where the stopwatch never lies. You’re either better than your competitors or not. So, I believe in marginal gains. But marginal gains are nothing compared to the magnitude of performance advantage that we can have with Peng and his team.”