German carmaker BMW Group will accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology with new facilities to be launched later this year at its research and development center in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province.

The Shenyang R&D center plans to open an autonomous driving data processing center and an autonomous driving test workshop in September and December this year, BMW Group said.

The data processing center will help to efficiently process autonomous driving test data, while the autonomous driving test workshop will primarily validate autonomous driving functions for new local models.

The Chinese R&D team will expand the possibilities and limits of autonomous driving technology and push for the realization of higher levels of autonomous driving technology, the carmaker said.

Patrick Mueller, vice president of the BMW Brilliance R&D Center, said that BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. will strengthen cooperation with Shenyang in the future in areas such as vehicle testing, information sharing, and formulating autonomous driving policies and regulations.

BMW's Shenyang facility, which combines R&D and production functions, is the German carmaker's largest production base worldwide and one of its most important new energy vehicle (NEV) bases.

With R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang and Nanjing, BMW has the largest R&D network in China outside Germany. The Shenyang R&D center focuses on the integration and validation of electric mobility technologies and intelligent connected vehicles.