Continental to set up AI Development Center in Budapest

Continental has announced that the company will be setting up an AI development center in Budapest that will employ at least 100 engineers and fresh graduates. The center is expected to become operational by May 2018. The announcement in this regard was made by Karl Haupt, who oversees the companyʼs Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) business unit, at a press conference that was held at Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Haupt said that the company is currently working on the development of complete systems for self-driving vehicles. The center is expected to require an investment of HUF 5.5 billion and the Hungarian government will provide a grant of HUF 1.4 billion for the center.

Continental opted to set up the AI development center in Budapest due to many factors like the availability of engineering specialists in the region, an active automotive industry and numerous universities and research centers according to Markus Strothjohann, Continentalʼs head of HR in Hungary. He said that Continental will be hiring about 100 software and hardware experts for the center shortly.
Jens Brüning, head of the new Budapest competence center said that engineers having expertise in machine learning, big data engineers, hardware and software designers, and system and application engineers, are highly sought after.

Continental’s new AI development center is expected to further increase Hungaryʼs competitiveness, and to reinforce its regional role in research and development of self-driving systems, according to Róbert Ésik, president of the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency (HIPA). He said that the new center marks as an important milestone in the Hungarian automotive industry, attesting to the transition from the “Made in Hungary” to the “Invented in Hungary” period.

Currently, Continental has more than 8,000 people in Hungary, with almost 5,000 in its automotive business.