Accenture and Google Cloud today announced that Volvo Cars has become the lead industry partner for Horizon, an open-source software development platform that helps car makers and automotive suppliers build, test, and deploy software for Android Automotive Operating System (AAOS) more efficiently. Horizon brings together cloud-native development tools, virtual testing environments, and AI-assisted workflows into a unified platform, helping automotive companies develop and deliver software at speed while making engineering more productive.
As Horizon’s lead industry partner, Volvo Cars is migrating its global AAOS software development environment to the platform, giving its engineers access to faster development workflows, virtual testing environments, and AI-assisted software development tools, freeing engineering teams to focus more on building in-car experiences.
Mr. Gregor Zetsche, Head of Connected Experience at Volvo Cars, said the company is building some of the most complex products in the world, requiring a development environment built to match, and that as Horizon’s lead industry partner, Volvo Cars can directly address its toughest engineering challenges and empower teams to deliver new experiences faster than ever. Volvo Cars is the lead car maker working with Accenture and Google Cloud to bring the Horizon platform to the industry, with insights from this collaboration expected to help refine the platform and expand its generative AI capabilities for automotive and other industrial manufacturers.
Modern vehicles increasingly offer digital experiences such as navigation, media, voice assistants, connected services, and over-the-air software updates, and as consumer expectations for these features continue to rise, manufacturers need faster, more efficient ways to build, test, and validate software at scale. Horizon addresses this by offering up to nine times faster software testing using virtual Cuttlefish-based Android Automotive environments that enable large-scale testing with agentic AI, along with up to 40% lower infotainment feature development costs. Intelligent caching and optimised build pipelines significantly cut software build times, reducing what used to take up to two hours to just minutes. The platform also offers remote access to virtual and physical device farms, allowing developers worldwide to build and validate software from anywhere while reducing infrastructure requirements, and virtual workbenches that let new developers set up their environments in seconds instead of waiting weeks for specialised physical hardware.
Mr. Juergen Reers, Global Automotive & Mobility Lead, Accenture, said Horizon enables a faster, more flexible, and efficient way to deliver software-defined vehicle features, with standardised, repeatable, and scalable processes that help deliver reliable, high-quality software while significantly reducing time to market, allowing Volvo Cars’ engineers to focus on creating differentiated vehicle experiences and delivering new value to drivers through software at high speed.
Mr. Henry Bzeih, Global Director, Automotive Industry, Google Cloud, said software now defines the automotive brand, and that Horizon on Google Cloud gives Volvo Cars the ability to move faster while releasing high-quality software and features at a pace matching the expectations of modern mobility, enabling next-generation digital experiences to reach drivers with agile speed.
Accenture and Google Cloud, with Volvo Cars as lead industry partner, are already working with other automotive and industrial organisations to extend Horizon’s reach into more companies and markets.
