Volkswagen Industrial Cloud Build In Partnership With Amazon Can Become Future Of B2B Marketplace

On Thursday, Europe’s largest automaker, Volkswagen AG said that it is all set to expand its data portal and cloud-based software. The move is aimed at developing an industry-wide marketplace that can enable business customers to buy and sell industrial applications.

VW’s industrial cloud which will eventually link more than 120 VW factories was designed in partnership with Amazon Web Services. These factories will include automaker’s 1,500 suppliers and their 30,000 plants.

According to Nihar Patel, VW’s executive vice president for strategic core projects, the cloud-based portal will serve as a platform to exchange software and data to help the factories accelerate the process of digitalization from stamping to painting to machinery maintenance.

The company has opened its portal for the first group of supplier partners which is led by Siemens AG. Under an App Store approach, these partners are expected to contribute software applications that will be shared with the company and among themselves.

Some of the supported in the initial wave of supplying partners are the German supplier of automated paint systems and plant engineering services, Dürr and the Swiss industrial automation specialist, ABB.

Moreover, according to Dirk Didascalou, vice president of the Internet of Things at AWS, the company will contribute towards managing the portal and it will also provide a range of cloud-based support services. Some of these services will include data analytics and computing.

Today, VW is the world’s third-largest automaker behind Tesla Inc and Toyota Motor Corp in terms of market capitalization. For several years now, it has been working on the industrial cloud with AWS. The industrial cloud does not only works with corporate customers such as BMW AGand Toyota to Avis Budget Group and Formula One but also it is one of Amazon’s fastest-growing, highest-margin businesses and manages, analyzes, and in some cases monetize data.

Patel added that VW’s efforts to speed up the ongoing digitalization in its factories are supported by the company’s supervisory board and powerful Works Council.