The BMW Group and AWS (Amazon Web Services) say their new strategic collaboration will see the companies develop cloud technologies with the aim of harnessing the data potential of future vehicle generations to ‘maximum effect’.
The two companies also revealed that they are cooperating to develop commercial off-the-shelf cloud solutions for securely managing vehicle data.
The BMW Group will be the first automaker to use the Amazon-created software, which will serve as the basis for its next-generation, cloud-based vehicle data platform.
Moving forward, the new software will be available to other automakers, enabling them to easily integrate vehicle data sources, accelerate vehicle and fleet application feature development, and improve life cycle management, while delivering advanced vehicle features and more personalized driver experiences at lower costs, explained Amazon.
Amazon and BMW have been working closely together on a number of initiatives since 2015. As in all previous collaborations, the BMW Group has confirmed that it retains full and exclusive control of data and complies with the data protection regulations applicable in the respective markets.
BMW’s connected fleet currently numbers some 20 million vehicles in over 50 countries including the Middle East. Currently, the connected fleet of BMW Group vehicles already sends around ten billion enquiries to the backend – as the IT infrastructure in the cloud for operating and managing the connected vehicle functions is known – every day. Vehicle data and the way it is interlinked with the cloud form the basis for customer functions such as the My BMW App, driver assistance functions, charging-optimised route guidance, over-the-air updates and hazard detection out on the road. Vehicle data is essential for the company too, as it is used for dedicated purposes, including improving and enhancing customer functions, quality management and after-sales processes.
“We have 20 million connected vehicles on the road today. With the launch of the ‘Neue Klasse,’ BMW’s next generation of vehicles, our offboard cloud platform, powered by AWS, will process roughly triple the volume of vehicle data compared to the current generation of BMW models,” said Nicolai Krämer, vice president of Vehicle Connectivity Platforms at the BMW Group. “Together with AWS, we will continue to create innovative solutions that enable us to develop and deliver new data-driven functions to customers worldwide, even faster.”
In order to keep pace with the rapidly growing number of connected vehicles, the BMW Group set up a central access point for internal users of vehicle-generated data in 2017. In doing so, the BMW Group took steps to ensure that customer data is protected and securely processed in accordance with data privacy requirements by means of established processes – across all the markets in which the company operates. In this latest collaboration, the BMW Group will again retain exclusive control of data. AWS provides cloud infrastructure and services without access to or insight into data generated by the BMW Group’s connected vehicle fleet.
The BMW Group and AWS co-developed solution ingests BMW vehicle signals and fleet intelligence data, and it securely processes and routes the data in the cloud. Using AWS’s cloud infrastructure and its industry-leading security, the BMW Group ensures that its customer data is protected and processed in accordance with data privacy requirements and customer preferences. Only the BMW Group’s internal domain experts — vehicle application developers, fleet managers, data scientists, and artificial intelligence, business intelligence, and development engineers — gain access to the data via a self-service mechanism that gathers streaming vehicle data, easily adds new data sources, configures access in accordance with governance policies, and monitors the quality and health of streaming sources. The data is then combined with AWS capabilities, including analytics, machine learning, database, storage, and compute, enabling the BMW Group experts to create new vehicle features and applications.
“Rapid, data-fueled innovation is critical to unlocking next-generation vehicle capabilities for automotive organizations, particularly as the industry looks to expand electric vehicle adoption, software-defined vehicle development, new digital service paradigms, and more autonomous vehicle features,” said Sarah Cooper, general manager of AWS Industry Products at Amazon Web Services, Inc. “By teaming up with the BMW Group, we are building infrastructure today that will generate value for the next generation of vehicles. Together, we are excited to make the vision of software-defined transportation a reality and to enhance the capabilities of vehicles on the road.
Driver Notes Creating digital experiences.
In the future, a self-service portal will enable BMW Group developers working on data-driven improvement of customer functions, for example, to obtain the necessary data on demand with just a few clicks. Through the use of AWS services and with reliable infrastructure in place, the portal will operate efficiently and smoothly, allowing the BMW Group, allowing the BMW Group engineers and data experts to focus entirely on data content and quality. In addition, data is also made available to third parties — subject to customer consent — for possible applications.
