Orchestrating scalability: how patents render cloud imaginaries in CAV innovation

This article explores how cloud computing enables and shapes the scaling of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), positioning cloud infrastructure as a technology, strategy, and imaginary central to the scaling of AI. Using a dataset of 69,421 global patent families, we analyse how diverse actors – including automotive manufacturers, chipmakers, electronics companies, autonomous vehicle firms, and telecom/mapping providers – mobilise cloud technologies to expand AI capabilities, manage resources, and coordinate complex socio-technical systems. Approaching patents through ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’, we show how they simultaneously codify technical innovations while projecting visions of scalable, cloud-enabled CAV futures. Our analysis identifies four thematic clusters – vehicle communication, machine vision, network architectures, and edge computing – through which cloud technologies are operationalised and imagined. We argue that the cloud functions as a technology of orchestration, with cloudification exemplifying AI’s industrialisation as it moves from laboratory research to globally scalable systems. The article contributes to debates on scale by highlighting the interplay between technical, organisational, and imaginative dimensions in shaping AI-enabled mobility.