Ground-breaking automotive industry initiative: German Edge Cloud now a member of
Catena-X

German Edge Cloud, specialising in edge and cloud computing systems, has joined the Catena-X Automo-tive Network (Catena-X). The network’s mission is to implement standards for the flow of data and information across the entire automotive-industry value chain. The move was announced within the scope of a special event on digital transformation in the automotive sector held on 2 March by BMWi, the Federal German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and VDA, the German Association of the Automobile Industry.

Catena-X is developing an open, scalable network based on Gaia-X to enable the secure, inter-enterprise exchange of data in the automo-tive industry. In association with other members, such as BMW, Mercedes Benz, Deutsche Telekom, Robert Bosch, SAP, Siemens, and ZF, German Edge Cloud hopes to establish an open B2B platform that will strengthen the competitive-ness of the German and European automotive industry.

The creation of open B2B industry-specific platforms for the digital exchange of information between manufacturers, suppliers and customers is becoming ever more important. In particular, they will enable new, data-driven business models.  The Catena-X cloud-based network was unveiled as an automotive alliance at the Digital Summit 2020 in the presence of Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Peter Altmaier. It is designed to support the European vehicle manufacturing industry and its partners, in particular with the integration of mid-size suppliers.

The data platform is based on the Gaia-X European cloud infrastructure. This ensures that companies maintain complete control over any sensitive data they share in the cloud. The car and truck industry is undergoing fundamental change, and the platform is intended to help the sector overcome the associated challenges, and to pioneer the deployment of Gaia-X for concrete use cases.

German Edge Cloud takes an active role in Gaia-X solutions

German Edge Cloud (GEC) is an industry leader when it comes to data privacy and data control. German Edge Cloud (GEC) is an industry leader when it comes to data privacy and data control.  In particular, GEC solutions facilitate especially data-intensive and performance-critical Industry 4.0 applications. German Edge Cloud is a subsidiary of Friedhelm Loh Group, one of the founding members of Gaia-X. The European project was launched in the autumn of 2019 by Peter Altmaier, German Minister of Economic Affairs, with a key contribution from Professor Friedhelm Loh. 

German Edge Cloud enables effective data control in a number of ways, for example by means of the company’s own product, ONCITE. This is an edge-cloud data centre that hosts industrial software, allowing production-related real-time applications in conjunction with secure, Gaia-X-compliant integration with legacy cloud solutions. Data from manufacturing and other value chain processes can therefore be safely exchanged and used beyond enterprise boundaries. Through its alignment with Gaia-X, German Edge Cloud is helping to establish a secure European data infrastructure.

The goal is to strengthen vehicle manufacturers and their mid-size suppliers

By participating in the Catena-X alliance, German Edge Cloud hopes to make it possible to transfer Gaia-X concepts to real-world scenarios in the automotive industry.