What do you get when you combine one of the world’s oldest automobile manufacturers with the advanced tech developments of Silicon Valley? Ford Motor Company’s new Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto, CA. Given the growing interest in smart cars, that all but turned this year’s Consumer Electronics Show into a car show, Ford is adding a new research center in the heart of the tech world in hopes of gaining an industry edge.

Ford’s new facility joins the auto maker’s growing list of research and innovation centers, which includes the Dearborn, Michigan location focusing on advanced electronics, human-machine interfacing, materials science, Big Data and analytics; and the center in Aachen, Germany, focused on next-generation powertrain research, driver-assist technologies and active safety systems.

“At Ford, we view ourselves as both a mobility and an auto company, as we drive innovation in every part of our business,” said Mark Fields, Ford president and CEO. “This new research center shows Ford’s commitment to be part of the Silicon Valley innovation ecosystem – anticipating customers’ wants and needs, especially on connectivity, mobility and autonomous vehicles. We are working to make these new technologies accessible to everyone, not just luxury customers.”

By the end of the year, Ford expects to have one of the largest automotive manufacturer research centers in Silicon Valley with the new facility. Some of the projects in the new facility include contributing a Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle to the Stanford University engineering program to begin testing the path planning-and-prediction algorithms researchers have developed over the past year; testing the ability to drive vehicles located on Georgia Institute of Technology’s campus in Atlanta from the Bay Area to prove out the new technology; integrating with the Nest application programming interface to better integrate the smart home and the connected car; leveraging its OpenXC platform to help learn how customers are using their vehicles; and overall improvement of customer experience.

“Growing the Palo Alto team will strengthen our global research prowess and drive innovation needed to meet the needs of our customers in the future,” said Ken Washington, vice president of Ford Research and Advanced Engineering. “Working together with the Silicon Valley research community will spark the new ideas, products and services that will help Ford once again change the way the world moves.”