The SOAFEE APAC Seminar Tokyo 2025 marked a pivotal moment in regional collaboration, showcasing the latest developments in automotive software innovation. The event celebrated the formal launch of the SOAFEE APAC Regional Hub, bringing together leaders from major OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and technology partners. The comprehensive program featured critical updates to SOAFEE architecture, in-depth industry discussions, and focused technical workshops, setting a new benchmark for regional engagement in automotive software development.

The SOAFEE APAC Regional Hub serves as a collaborative platform for SOAFEE activities across the Asia-Pacific region. While 40% of SOAFEE's global membership originates from APAC, challenges such as time zone differences and language barriers have historically limited regional members' participation in SOAFEE Working Group meetings. Following productive discussions at a workshop during the SOAFEE APAC Seminar in Seoul in September 2024, APAC members initiated the concept of a regional hub.

During the trial operation phase of the APAC Regional Hub, members actively shaped the mission and direction of the Hub through biweekly discussions. Through this collaborative process, five strategic objectives—framed as actionable “Acts”—were finalized to guide its ongoing activities: Collect regional voices and challenges, Enact standards and implementations tailored to APAC needs, Interact as a bridge between the region and the global SOAFEE community, Connect with other APAC OSS and standards organizations, and Impact the global ecosystem with meaningful regional contributions.

This structure supports a dual-track strategy: a bottom-up approach, aligning with SOAFEE’s existing technical pillars—virtualization (e.g., VirtIO, Unified HMI), containerization (e.g., Piccolo, Lingua Franca, BlueChi), and cloudification (e.g., virtual platform)—and a top-down approach that incorporates direct feedback from OEMs gathered through seminars and workshops. Together, this ensures both technical alignment and regional responsiveness.

After a successful trial period, the SOAFEE APAC Regional Hub was formally launched at the latest SOAFEE APAC Seminar in Tokyo in May 2025.

The SOAFEE APAC Seminar series, initiated in September 2023, serves as a crucial platform for regional collaboration, rotating between key cities in Japan, Korea, and China every six months. These face-to-face gatherings are essential for building strong relationships and sharing expertise on SDV developments. Accompanying member- exclusive workshops provide focused opportunities for collaboration on innovations and standards within SOAFEE.

The latest SOAFEE APAC Seminar and Member Workshop, held on May 15-16, 2025, in Tokyo, marked a significant milestone with the official launch of the APAC Regional Hub. The two-day event attracted nearly 150 industry professionals from across the region on the first day, representing major automotive OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and technology partners, followed by an exclusive member workshop on the second day.

Key Highlights:

• Announcement of Panasonic Automotive Systems (PAS) joining as a Governing Body member and launch of SOAFEE APAC Regional Hub led by Jerry Zhao from PAS

• Presentation of SOAFEE Architecture 2.0 and SOAFEE.next initiatives

• Three focused tracks: Voice of Car OEMs, Deterministic SDV, and SOAFEE Blueprint implementations

• Fourteen partner demonstrations showcasing cutting-edge SDV solutions

• Three focused member workshop sessions addressing critical automotive industry challenges and opportunities

For details about seminar session, please check this related blog: https://www.soafee.io/blog/2025/soafee_tokyo_seminar_summary

The second day featured an exclusive SOAFEE member workshop, where participants engaged in focused discussions on three critical industry topics for one hour each:

The session explored how virtual hardware enables earlier, faster software development for SDVs, while also highlighting challenges and gaps that still need to be addressed.

Key Takeaways

• Cross-industry experience revealed a range of use cases—from prototyping to CI/CD—and differing challenges based on role

• Broad agreement that virtual hardware is crucial for reducing time-to-market, especially when physical ECUs aren't available.

• Cost of tools remains a major concern, particularly for full ECU/peripheral modeling.

• Technical gaps include binary incompatibility, timing mismatches, I/O modeling complexity, and SoC virtualization issues in cloud environments.

What's Next

The discussion will continue through the SOAFEE APAC Hub bi-weekly calls, focusing on:

• Deeper case studies from OEMs and tool vendors

• Collaborative requirement gathering

• Exploring proposals for more accessible, accurate virtual platforms

Discussed about 5 risks and 4 solutions for Software Supply Chain Management to find the security risk as the most concerned and the standardization as the most probable solution with OSPO and SBOM. ELISA is related to both OSPO and SBOM.

Key Takeaways

• 5 risks: Security, Copyright, Patent, Reputational and Business. Security Risk is the most challenging topic.

• 4 solutions: OSPO, SBOM, Standardization, Sharing Best Practices. Standardization of the supply-chain management is the most probable solution as the next step together with OSPO and SBOM.

What's Next

The discussion will continue through the SOAFEE APAC Hub bi-weekly calls, focusing on:

• Continuous collaboration between SOAFEE APAC Regional Hub and AGL OSPO Expert Group to identify problems and propose solutions for open-source software development and software supply chain management.

The session examined the automotive industry's vision for SDV maturity level by 2030, identifying current barriers and potential collaboration to increase SDV maturity level through SOAFEE activities.

Key Takeaways

• Lack standard SDV Level

• No industry-wide standards exist to measure SDV capabilities

• Need for common evaluation criteria, similar to autonomous driving levels

• SDV Level Definition from Elektrobit used as workshop reference

• Current State Analysis

• Different car manufacturers at varying SDV implementation stages

• Workshop survey showed audience expects industry average at SDV Level 4 (Software platform) by 2030

• Majority of participants indicated their companies at Level 3 (Updateable) by 2030

• Domain complexity varies significantly (cockpit shows more promise, while other domains face greater challenges)

• Major implementation blockers identified:

• Hardware dependencies limiting software flexibility

• Complex cross-generation OTA update challenges

• Organizational silos impeding integrated development

• Legacy architecture constraints

What's Next

The discussion will continue through the SOAFEE APAC Hub bi-weekly calls, focusing on:

• Developing a comprehensive and standard SDV level through SOAFEE activities

• Discussing and analyzing AI's potential impact on architecture and use case

Overall, the strong attendance and engagement for the SOAFEE seminar and workshop demonstrated the growing momentum of SOAFEE in the APAC region, reinforcing the importance of establishing the Regional Hub for continued collaboration and innovation.

The launch of the SOAFEE APAC Regional Hub marks a new chapter for deeper collaboration within the Asia-Pacific automotive ecosystem. The Hub is introducing regular bi-weekly virtual calls, available on the SOAFEE Public Calendar, complementing the bi- annual in-person seminars to create an effective hybrid engagement model.

These virtual calls will serve as:

• An entry point for new members to engage in SOAFEE activities

• A platform for project updates, technical discussions, and standardization efforts

• An inclusive forum for collaboration in local time zones and languages

How to participate:

• Subscribe to the SOAFEE mailing list and calendar to receive bi-weekly call invites

• Engage in technical discussions and working groups aligned with your expertise

• Submit proposals for workshop topics or demonstrations for upcoming events

The APAC Hub extends an invitation to all regional members—whether seasoned professionals or newcomers—to participate in shaping the future of software-defined vehicles through the SOAFEE ecosystem.