Swedish car manufacturer Volvo (STO: VOLV-B) said it will build a 200 PebiBytes (225 million gigabytes) data centre to harness and store data gathered from sensors in its cars.

The news was shared during the company’s Tech Day and comes as other car manufactures also invest in building more software and data storage capabilities to support the development of the connect and driverless car economy.

Ödgärd Andersson, CEO at Zenseact, Volvo Cars, said: “With help from real-life data we can speed up our development processes and go from years to days.

“As real-time collection generates a lot more data, we can create better and higher-quality data sets that allow us to make better and quicker decisions on the next advancements in safety. We are taking a giant leap to increase safety in and around our cars.”

The company did not specify when the artificial intelligence (AI) enabled data centre facility will reach the 200 PiB capacity level, simply have shared that that will happened “within the next few years”.

Volvo car users will be given the choice of having their data collected or not, and should they agree to data collection, how much of will be kept anonymous.

Also commenting, Mats Moberg, head of R&D at Volvo Cars, added: “Safety is part of our heritage and the backbone of our company, but software is a crucial part of our modern-day DNA.

“While we continue to build on the 50-year expertise of the industry-leading Volvo Cars Accident Research Team, we can now also leverage AI as a new, virtual accident research team.”

In addition to the data centre facility announcement, Volvo Cars also said it has extended its partnership with Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to continue developing the connected user experience within the car.

Volvo Cars’ CTO Henrik Green said: “Our teams have spent a lot of time with Google to further develop and improve our user experience for the next generation of Volvo cars.

“Especially in terms of safety, serenity, and simplicity, we have made great strides thanks to a deeper integration of design and technological development. We are convinced that it will allow us to create even better Volvo cars and set a new industry standard.”

For the 2020 financial year, Volvo Car Group recorded an operating profit of 8.5 BSEK (14.3 BSEK in 2019).

Revenue over the period amounted to 262.8 BSEK (274.1 BSEK). For the full year of 2020, global sales reached 661,713 cars (705,452), a decline of 6.2 per cent compared to 2019.