Photo: uamotors
BMW is actively integrating artificial intelligence into its engineering processes and joining forces with Mistral AI to improve vehicle crash simulations and accelerate the development of new car models. Although this partnership will not directly affect car owners in the short term, BMW says the collaboration is aimed at long-term efficiency gains and creating additional value.
As part of the partnership, the companies plan to combine BMW’s massive engineering databases with Mistral AI’s machine learning capabilities to create a specialized industrial AI system. The automaker conducts thousands of virtual crash tests every week and has accumulated more than a petabyte of data, allowing engineers to analyze in detail how materials and vehicle structures behave during collisions.
The core idea is to build so-called “large industry models” — highly specialized AI systems trained exclusively on BMW’s engineering and testing data rather than open internet content. This approach is expected to improve simulation accuracy and make the results more useful for real engineering tasks. Mistral AI says industrial artificial intelligence represents the next stage of technological development and could significantly help solve complex engineering challenges, particularly in vehicle safety.
Beyond crash-test simulations, AI is also being used to accelerate software development and the creation of future BMW models, especially in coding-related tasks. According to company representatives, processes that previously required hours or even days can now be completed much faster.
BMW acknowledges that introducing artificial intelligence helps increase productivity and reduce the need for manual work in certain areas while simultaneously speeding up the entire vehicle development cycle.
