ITF World 2025: Imec’s Vision for Automotive Over the Long Haul

At this week’s Imec Technology Forum (ITF) 2025, EE Times Europe caught up with imec’s Bart Placklé about how the research institute is helping to reimagine computing architectures for next-generation vehicles.

By Pat Brans, EETimes Europe | May 23, 2025 

Modern vehicles are fast becoming data centers on wheels, expected to deliver not just mobility but also autonomy, safety, and a continuous stream of software updates. These expectations come with an insatiable demand for high-performance computing—but in a radically different operating environment from data centers or smartphones. Systems must operate reliably over the vehicle’s 10- to 15-year lifespan, in harsh conditions where heat, vibration, and 24/7 uptime are the norm.

That’s where imec comes in. The Belgian research institute is applying decades of semiconductor innovation to one of the automotive industry’s most pressing challenges: how to design vehicle computing platforms that are powerful, cost-effective, and robust over time. “A car is going to be the most high-end compute device you own,” Bart Placklé, vice president of automotive at imec, told EE Times Europe at this week’s ITF World 2025 in Antwerp, Belgium. “But it’s not in a temperature-controlled server room; it’s out on the road. And once higher levels of autonomy enable a shift away from the current ownership model, the systems will be running virtually nonstop.”

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