Hyundai CRADLE Beijing Opens, Completing Hyundai Motor Group’s Global Innovation Network

Hyundai Motor Group has completed its creation of a global innovation network with the establishment of Hyundai CRADLE Beijing. With sites in Seoul, Berlin, Tel Aviv, and Silicon Valley, the China office is the fifth center in the network, which exists to explore and utilize various innovation opportunities and business models in China to contribute the growth of HMG’s new business.

As the group’s open innovation and corporate venturing business, Hyundai CRADLE invests extensively in promising global startups and creating partnerships that boost the development of prospective services, systems, and complementary research opportunities.

CRADLE Beijing will construct interactive business and investment collaborations with leading ICT companies, start-ups, government institutions, key universities, investment institutions and other strategic partners in China, while contributing to global efforts to foster ‘disruptive innovation’.

“As the world moves from an information technology era to one focused on data technology, CRADLE Beijing will setup an open innovation interactive platform in China, fully interact with local innovation networks,” said Peter Yang, Head of Hyundai CRADLE Beijing. “CRADLE Beijing will be a harbor for sharing innovation solutions that originated in China around the world.”

China is the world’s largest automotive market and has the one of the largest start-up culture globally, making it the ideal location for Hyundai Motor Group’s fifth CRADLE office. Beijing’s innovation credentials are strong as it hosts China’s youth entrepreneurship district, named ‘Zhongguancun’ and a high concentration of investment institutions. Beijing is also the birthplace of innovation policy.

“To foster Hyundai Motor Group’s transformation from a vehicle-centric manufacturer to a lifetime provider of mobility solutions for our customers, we must identify and incentivize ideas that extended beyond our traditional patterns of business and break into new territory in vehicle design and lifestyle-centric offerings,” said John Suh, Head of Hyundai CRADLE Silicon Valley. “Our global CRADLE network will foster the development of new technologies that enable improvements of how people move, lowering of environment impact, and the increase in productivity and happiness for all.”

Hyundai Motor Group has a track record for future technology partnerships in China. In 2018, it co-published plans for a hydrogen energy fund with Tsinghua University, while in March this year it invested in Deep GLINT, a promising Chinese AI startup.