The Toyota and Microsoft brands are collaborating to develop competitiveness in the World Rally Championship. The advances in technology also benefit production vehicles, making mobility increasingly sustainable.
This year sees the continuation of the collaboration, signed in 2017, between Toyota and Microsoft in relation to the World Rally Championship, one of the motorsport activities through which Toyota Gazoo Racing expresses itself. For Toyota, motorsport is not merely racing and entertainment, but an opportunity to improve products and expertise, and therefore to "build ever-better cars". "Toyota, just like Microsoft, aims to improve the quality of life in many different ways – President Akio Toyoda had said at the time the agreement was signed – With this partnership we want to improve ourselves and our cars by integrating the most innovative information technologies into motorsport."
Microsoft is therefore the technology partner of the carmaker and, as last year, will help Toyota increase the competitiveness of the Three Ellipses in the WRC championship, transferring innovation and know-how to production models as well. In particular, Microsoft's support has so far involved the development of an analytics platform that collects driving data, the creation of an information-sharing system that allows the team to collaborate and share, for example, images and videos via a cloud computing service, and the development of smartphone applications that increase engagement and the relationship with the public, offering direct access to the sporting experience. While 2017 had seen the grand debut of the Yaris WRC, with victories at the Rally of Sweden and Rally Finland, this year the challenge continues with a further improved car. In the 2018 World Rally Championship, the drivers have so far claimed second and third place at the Rally Monte-Carlo, second place at the Tour de Corse, first place at the Rally Argentina, and third place at the Rally Italia Sardegna.
Information technology plays a hugely important role in the development of the automotive sector, as it provides a wealth of data for managing products and steering them towards sustainable mobility. And this is not the first time Toyota and Microsoft have worked together: the partnership has bound them for many years and, more recently, the two brands collaborated on the creation of Toyota Connected, a company set up expressly to develop the mobility of the future by collecting and analysing data aimed at improving the driving and car-buying experience for Toyota customers. The carmaker also advances its research through the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), a facility that studies artificial intelligence for automobiles, robotics and scientific research: tests are frequently conducted through multi-agent simulation and, here too, Microsoft proves to be the ideal partner.