BMW and Amazon will develop next generation cloud solutions for cars

BMW and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a strategic collaboration on joint development of innovative cloud technology to harness data of future vehicles. Both companies will look into creating off-the-shelf cloud solutions that could securely manage all vehicle data, the solution could potentially be offered to other manufacturers as well.

BMW and AWS has been working on connected cars since 2015, just as it was the case on previous projects, BMW Group has a full and exclusive control of all the data and applies all data protection regulations in all of the respective markets.

To get an idea of the size of the task at hand - BMW’s connected fleet already has over 20 million vehicles, spread over 50 jurisdictions. Every day this fleet sends ten billion enquiries to the cloud. All that data is related and it forms the basis of BMW services.

Security is a priority for BMW and the growing number of connected cars presents a growing potential risk. Customer data can be accessed only from a central access point, which BMW setup all the way back in 2017. The company puts a lot of stress on the fact that it is the only one with access to the data at all times.

The collaboration with AWS is essential for BMW’s Neue Klasse - the upcoming family of all-electric cars. The company expects that the new generation of electric cars will triple the volume of data in comparison to current vehicles. Fast, reliable and secure data connections and processing will be essential to provide a high quality experience.

The official press release mentions for the first time that with customer consent, the data can be made available to third party developers which opens the door for outside application developers. BMW hopes the use of AWS infrastructure and services will ensure efficient access for the engineers and data experts who will be able to focus only on the data quality and not to worry about the infrastructure.

Today’s world is already connected in so many ways and it is already so intertwined with our lives, that it’s impossible to imagine it any other way. The future takes this connectivity to the next level. Will it be a smooth progress? Absolutely not, there will be funny and dangerous hiccups along the way, but there's no going back.

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