A new partnership between an American vehicle cockpit electronics supplier and a major Chinese conglomerate is poised to see the development of sophisticated biometric technologies for autonomous cars.

One of the key players in the agreement is Michigan-based Visteon, which recently showcased facial recognition and gaze-tracking technologies for consumer vehicles at last autumn’s Electric Vehicle Symposium & Exhibition in Japan. The other is Tencent, whose TAI, or Tencent Automotive Intelligence, solutions will be integrated into Visteon’s SmartCore vehicle cockpit platform. This will lead to the development of in-car systems allowing users to interact with vehicles based on their facial expressions, voices, and gestures.

The companies say that the products of their collaboration will initially be delivered to Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. (abbreviated “GAC”) with the aim of integrating them into electric vehicles slated to arrive in early 2020. GAC’s R&D Center has had a strategic agreement in place with Visteon for about a year now, revolving around the latter’s SmartCore platform and its DriveCore autonomous driving platform.

The agreement was announced at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where connected car and automotive biometrics technologies have once again generated considerable buzz.

(Originally posted on FindBiometircs)