The show is exactly the right place for Samsung to unveil its first components for autonomous driving and infotainment solutions that it has been developing with Harman International, which it bought out around a year ago as part of its major push into the vehicle electronics market.
It only takes a brief glimpse at the news coming out of CES 2018 to see how the automotive industry is now easily one of the fastest-growing segments of the technology market, and that's because automakers are looking to add more and more autonomous features as the race to put driverless cars on the road intensifies.
That's why Samsung has unveiled its new automotive camera system that includes collision warning, lane-departure warning, and adaptive cruise control, which it has developed in collaboration with Harman. The $8 billion deal to buy Harman in March last year was the biggest overseas acquisition ever made by a South Korean company, and it's now starting to look like a very wise move.
The camera system is built on a machine learning and augmented reality platform, and although the company didn't give exact timing, it's expected to start shipping later this year.
But the company is also showcasing what it calls a "digital cockpit," which is a clever system that lets drivers personalize cars they don't even own.
The system is designed to pull the users' profiles from either their mobile devices or the cloud, so it would be perfect for rental companies or autonomous ride-sharing applications. It has to be said though, that Samsung isn't the only game in town when it comes to the digital cockpit as Byton was showing a similar system at the show only a day earlier.
Samsung's name and reputation gives it an intrinsic advantage though. And the fact it set up a strategic business unit for autonomous and advanced driver assistance technologies, along with a US$300 million fund for investing in automotive startups and technology, shows just how serious it is about this burgeoning sector.
