BMW’s partnership with Momenta is about to indicate up in a manufacturing automobile. Each firms confirmed right this moment that their collectively developed intelligent-driving system will debut within the next-generation BMW iX3 inbuilt China, with mass manufacturing beginning in 2026.
This would be the first BMW mannequin to run Momenta’s end-to-end “flywheel” stack—a big neural-network mannequin that handles notion, planning, and management in a single circulate. As a substitute of separate modules passing info forwards and backwards, the system reads the surroundings, makes choices, and executes them by way of a unified structure. It’s the form of setup that makes extra sense in China, the place site visitors conduct can shift shortly and guidelines don’t all the time predict how individuals truly drive.
A China-Particular Structure Constructed on Momenta’s “Flywheel” Mannequin
The China-built iX3 will take a distinct path from the worldwide model. In Europe, the Neue Klasse iX3 will launch with BMW’s newest Stage 2+ driver-assistance capabilities: hands-on however extremely automated, particularly on highways. Trade insiders anticipate the China model to go a step additional. With Momenta’s stack beneath, it’s being described by sources as “Stage 2++.”
BMW and Momenta have joint engineering groups working throughout Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, and Nanjing, tuning the system to match native circumstances. Beijing’s dense ring roads, Shanghai’s multi-layer expressways, Shenyang’s winters, and Nanjing’s tight city neighborhoods all feed straight into calibration work.
The actual testing footprint is much bigger. BMW says the system is being validated towards greater than 100 million kilometers of simulation, layered on high of large-scale street testing carried out below BMW’s international security requirements. Excessive-frequency eventualities, unpredictable maneuvers, and uncommon edge instances are all being constructed into the loop.
How the China Model Goes Past Europe’s Stage 2+ System
Momenta’s involvement is central to how this method works. The corporate is certainly one of China’s few true full-stack autonomous-driving gamers, working below a “one flywheel, two legs” technique: mass-produced L2/L2+ programs on one aspect, and data-driven L4 analysis on the opposite. The BMW program feeds straight into that mannequin. BMW’s contribution focuses on security oversight, driver interplay logic, and tuning that retains the automobile’s conduct predictable and constant. The purpose isn’t to automate every thing—it’s to construct a system that feels pure and reliable to somebody driving in China day-after-day.
Manufacturing of the China-specific Neue Klasse iX3 begins at BMW Brilliance’s Shenyang facility in 2026, with the market launch and international debut occurring later that yr. Deliveries in China are anticipated to begin in the summertime of 2026. BMW has already stated the China variant may have options tailor-made particularly for the market, together with BMW’s customized LLM developed with Alibaba and the extra superior driving-assistance system co-developed with Momenta.
As soon as it launches, this Momenta-powered stack gained’t be restricted to at least one mannequin. BMW plans to develop it to further China-built automobiles. The corporate now joins Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Nissan in partnering with Momenta—one other signal that international automakers are adapting shortly to China’s tempo in clever driving, and not counting on merely porting over international programs after the actual fact.
