SAIC partners with Oppo to explore smart vehicle eco-system

China's largest carmaker SAIC has joined hands with smartphone maker Oppo to explore the booming smart electric vehicle sector.

At SAIC's Developer Conference on Friday, the two vowed to make technical standards and development resources accessible to other players in the sector.

The move is designed to build an eco-system in which "services can be customized, access can be made via different terminals, and brands are compatible with each other", said the two.

They also showcased a model from SAIC's subsidiary Rising Auto that features Oppo's Carlink, an alternative to Apple's popular CarPlay.

The Oppo Carlink is the result of Oppo and SAIC's cooperation since February 2021. Oppo established a joint lab with SAIC's software subsidiary Z-One.

Z-One also unveiled its latest computing platform ZXD at the same event. The platform, as the brain of smart vehicles, will be mass-produced from 2025.

The SAIC Developer Conference, initiated in 2021, attracted a number of big names in the software and technology industry this year, including Huawei, Alibaba, Baidu, Momenta and Horizon.

Last year, SAIC unveiled its Service-oriented Architecture at the conference and developers are invited to offer their applications.

The architecture is a digital platform that allows car owners to customize their cars, like a smartphone owner can do on its phone with the Android system.