IoT firm Quectel has welcomed Qualcomm’s acquisition of Israeli V2X company Autotalks.

Autotalks is a fabless semiconductor company that has been dedicated to V2X communications since 2009.

“Qualcomm is a long-time and strong technology partner of Quectel in the automotive sector where we have worked closely to advance communication technologies for years,” said Norbert Muhrer, president of Quectel. “We believe Qualcomm’s continued expansion of V2X will help enhance safety for all on roadways. We congratulate Qualcomm on their Autotalks acquisition and look forward to extending the strong working relationship we have with Qualcomm to Autotalks.”

Designed to enable vehicles to communicate with one another and to their surrounding environment, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication technologies play an increasingly important role as they become critical sensors for automotive safety systems.

Autotalks provides automotive qualified dual-mode global V2X products compatible with multiple V2X standards that are designed to reduce collisions and improve mobility. The combination of Autotalks’ expertise and products with Qualcomm’s 20 years of automotive industry experience and commitment to V2X should help accelerate the development and adoption of V2X to improve traffic efficiency and driver and road user safety.

Through the acquisition, the production-ready, dual mode, Autotalks standalone safety products will be incorporated into Qualcomm’s Snapdragon digital chassis portfolio, a set of cloud-connected automotive platforms.

“We have been investing in V2X research, development and deployment since 2017 and believe that as the automotive market matures, a standalone V2X safety architecture will be needed for enhanced road user safety, as well as smart transportation systems,” said Nakul Duggal, senior vice president at Qualcomm. “We look forward to working together to deliver global V2X that will help accelerate time to market and enable mass market adoption of this very important safety technology.”

Hagai Zyss, CEO of Autotalks, added: “It has been our mission to revolutionise safety for the transportation and automotive industry through V2X. We are confident that by combining our knowledge and expertise, we will not only deliver strong V2X products that will enhance transportation efficiency and safety for road users but will accelerate widespread adoption of V2X.”

Potential customers have voiced support for this acquisition. These include Dirk Hilgenberg, chief executive officer of Volkswagen subsidiary Cariad. He said: “We’re working closely with Qualcomm to power our next-generation vehicles with cutting-edge technology and hardware enabling premium experiences in the space of automated driving for our customers. In this space, V2X communication technologies are increasingly important and essential to ensure the safety of automotive systems, so we welcome these joint efforts.”

Douglas Cochrane, head of product line telematics at Continental, added: “At Continental, we remain committed to developing safe and innovative automotive connectivity that paves the way for future mobility. We look forward to working alongside both Qualcomm and Autotalks to not only advance intelligent mobility for the industry, but to help make driving safer and more efficient with V2X technologies.”

Ans Scott Miller, vice president at General Motors, said: “There are a number of promising benefits that V2X applications could deliver at scale, and we are eager to continue to work with companies like Qualcomm to find ways to bring those benefits to customers.”

Thierry Cammal, vice president of Renault’s software factory, added: “The Snapdragon digital chassis has played a pivotal role in ushering in Renault’s next generation of software-defined vehicles. With connectivity being more imperative than ever in advancing software-defined vehicle architectures, we congratulate Qualcomm and Autotalks for joining forces to support reliable and high-performing V2X for the automotive market.”

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.