Volkswagen teams up with Microsoft to create an automotive cloud

Volkswagen plans to build a cloud for its “Connected Cars” – and this will run with software from Microsoft in the future. The carmaker from Lower Saxony has entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft. The two companies intend to jointly develop a backend data platform called “Volkswagen Automotive Cloud”, which, as a large industrial cloud, will encompass all future digital services and mobility offerings from that car manufacturer.

In the future, all data services in the vehicles of Volkswagen’s core brand and the group-wide cloud-based digital carrier architecture One Digital Platform (ODP) will be based throughout on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and platform services such as Azure IoT Edge will be used. This simplifies the technical landscape for Volkswagen, as well as for external participants and data suppliers for the automotive cloud.

Via this data hub, the automaker intends to significantly optimize the linking of vehicle, cloud-based platform and customer-oriented services of all brands, such as the “Volkswagen We” ecosystem. With the establishment of the Automotive Cloud, Volkswagen intends to expand digital services to its entire fleet. In addition, new services and solutions for the customer experience in the vehicle, in telematics and for secure data exchange between vehicle and cloud can be efficiently developed and quickly implemented.

As part of the partnership, Volkswagen will also establish a new development center for the automotive cloud in North America, near Microsoft’s headquarters. Around 300 IT specialists are expected to work there in the near future.

In addition, Microsoft is making its company-wide cloud expertise available to the Volkswagen development team. The IT specialists at Volkswagen can thus learn from Microsoft’s culture in collaborative and agile work and transfer this experience to Volkswagen’s core organization.

The solutions developed as part of the strategic partnership will also be rolled out over the long term in other Group brands such as Porsche and Audi and in all regions of the world.