JERUSALEM, May 7 (Reuters) - Chinese automaker Geely

and Israeli auto safety technology startup Foretellix

formed a strategic partnership to accelerate safe large-scale

development of self-driving vehicles, the two companies said on

Tuesday.

Foretellix and Geely will collaborate to integrate

Foretellix's safety platform with Geely's development and

verification and validation flows and advanced simulator, they

said in a joint statement.

The platform will be used to automatically analyze driving

logs from Geely's test vehicles and replay numerous variations

in virtual simulation to maximize the utilization of physical

drives, they said.

"Our partnership with Forerellix will be crucial in Geely's

quest to overcome safety challenges and commercialize AVs

(autonomous vehicles) faster," said ChuanHai Li, vice president

of Geely Research and Development.

Last month, Foretellix partnered with Nvidia ( NVDA ) to automate the

process of autonomous vehicle development.