Amazon & Volkswagen Join Forces

Amazon and Volkswagon have just teamed up for an ambitious project.

The world’s biggest car-maker and the store that sells everything have teamed up to create an industrial cloud. The new cloud will be used at all of Volkswagen’s 122 facilities. The platform will then be made available to other companies as well. Amazon Web Services will be tasked with seeing the project through to fruition. After the project is completed, the industrial cloud could connect all of Volkswagen’s machines, plants, and systems. In the long term, Volkswagen could opt to expand the cloud for its 1,500 suppliers and partner companies, which have a cumulative 30,000+ locations.

According to Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy, Volkswagen will “reinvent its manufacturing and logistics processes.” The aim is indeed to standardize all production-level machinery and have it all on the network. This would make Volkswagen’s operations much easier. It is also expected to result in a 30% increase in production (outside of China) by 2025. A part of the plan that is more certain at the moment is 7,000 job cuts by 2023. The savings from the job cuts are expected to add up to about $9 billion, which will be set aside for further research and development.

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5 years ago