[Edaily Reporter Lee So-Hyun ] Apex Mobility, an autonomous driving specialist listed on the SOCAR(403550), has unveiled a roadmap to expand into an autonomous mobility service provider—including robo-taxis (ride-hailing) and robo-buses—based on its data platform. The company plans to process the driving data accumulated through SOCAR’s car-sharing business for autonomous driving artificial intelligence (AI) training and to directly collect high-quality multimodal data to develop commercial services.

According to Apex Mobility on the 28th, Jang Hyuk, Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of Apex Mobility, delivered a presentation titled “Data Platform for the Commercialization of Autonomous Driving Services” at the “2026 Autonomous Driving Industry Conference” held the previous day at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

In his presentation, CSO Jang estimated that the “golden window” for the domestic autonomous driving market is up to three years. He cited the fact that commercial driverless services have gained full momentum, particularly in the U.S. and China, and that related projects are being aggressively pursued in major global cities such as London and Tokyo.

He explained that as autonomous driving technology shifts from a rule-based approach relying on high-resolution precision maps to an end-to-end (E2E) approach that processes video and LiDAR inputs within a single AI model, the decisive factor is shifting to data.

CSO Jang stated, “For example, as open-source visual-language-action (VLA) models like ‘AlphaMayo’ become widespread, high-quality public road driving data—along with edge case data containing accidents and unexpected situations—is becoming the final barrier to advancing autonomous driving,” adding “The first step in our roadmap toward commercializing the service is to transform the data assets that our parent company, SOCAR, has accumulated over the past 15 years through its car-sharing business into a format that autonomous driving AI can simulate,” he said.

The second step is securing high-quality data for AI training. During the exhibition, Apex Mobility unveiled for the first time a prototype Ioniq 5 vehicle equipped with LiDAR and seven omnidirectional cameras. The company plans to gradually expand its fleet of vehicles equipped with a “full sensor suite” to directly collect high-resolution multimodal data.

The third step is to translate the competitiveness of its data platform into actual autonomous driving services. Apex Mobility aims to launch a Level 4 autonomous robo-taxi service and is also preparing route-based and demand-responsive (DRT) robo-buses.

Its parent company, SOCAR, plans to introduce Level 2+ and Level 3 autonomous vehicles for use by its car-sharing customers. Under this structure, SOCAR will handle autonomous car-sharing, while Apex Mobility will manage AI-driven robo-taxi services.

CSO Jang said, “Our goal is for SOCAR and Apex Mobility to grow into ‘the nation’s leading autonomous mobility service providers,’ bridging the gap between car-sharing—where a driver sits in the driver’s seat—and ride-hailing, where AI handles fully autonomous driving.”