The BMW Group first started developing its own vehicle software 20 years ago and has been steadily expanding its global network of development teams for car software and business IT solutions ever since. For a number of years, its expertise in these areas has been supported by IT and software hubs in Germany, the US, South Africa, India, Portugal (with the joint venture Critical TechWorks) and China (with the LingYue Digital IT Co. Ltd. and BA TechWorks joint ventures). Software development for vehicles and business IT is combined according to DevOps* practices and offers major advantages, especially in terms of backend and application development and operations.

The BMW Group and its joint ventures currently employ around 9,400 IT and software developers (as at Q1 2024), with more set to join their ranks in two new joint ventures in Romania and India before the year is out.

Successful digital transformation affects not just our products (i.e. the user experience) but our business processes as well. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) early this year, the BMW Group showed once again how it is shaping digital future mobility in terms of the user experience. Frank Weber, Board Member for Development with the BMW Group, explains: “BMW stands for both: the ultimate driving machine plus the ultimate digital user experience.” In other words, BMW customers have access to an enhanced range of services from the BMW Connected Drive Store and, with that, to on-demand features for their vehicles and an ever-increasing range of third-party music, news and gaming apps for the infotainment system.

Underpinning all this is the high-performance BMW Operating System, which was developed in-house. To continue enhancing it, along with all the other software platforms required for the vehicle, the BMW Group is relying on cutting-edge tools and techniques and talented software developers. Thanks to the global distribution of its software hubs, development work is carried out round the clock in real-time in the cloud, and solutions are integrated into the different ECU (control unit) projects. The global vehicle software development team already creates up to 140,000 software builds a day across the entire ECU software (1 build = 1 source code change/creation that can be executed in the vehicle software, including automated testing).

In the future, there are plans for the global network of software and IT hubs to receive additional support with software development for premium BMW Group vehicles and business IT solutions – from new joint ventures in India and Romania.

At the beginning of April, the BMW Group signed a joint venture agreement with the global product engineering and digital services provider Tata Technologies.

The purpose of the joint venture is to support the development of vehicle software for automated driving, infotainment and digital services, while business IT activities focus on the digitalisation and automation of product development, production and sales. The majority of development work is to take place at sites in Pune and Bangalore, while Chennai concentrates on business IT solutions. The execution of the joint venture agreement is subject to review and approval by the relevant authorities.

The joint venture will start with 100 trained experts from Tata Technologies – rising to a four-figure number over the next few years.

Efforts are also underway to set up a joint venture in Romania to enable the establishment of a new business IT hub in Europe. This will focus on software development for HR, production, development, sales and BMW Group Financial Services. An agreement to that effect has now been signed by the BMW Group and Romania’s NTT DATA, with whom we have collaborated on various projects over the last 30 years or more. Again, the execution of this contract is subject to review and approval by the relevant authorities.

The joint venture is to be set up in Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg), Romania, initially with 120 software developers. The university town has a strong innovation ecosystem with solid entrepreneurship, startups and plenty of talents in tech, offering huge potential for long-term growth. The joint venture is expected to employ around 250 software developers by the end of 2024, increasing to four figures by 2027, like in India.

The new joint ventures in India and Romania will support the steady, needs-focused growth of the BMW Group’s global software expertise.

* DevOps is a methodology of software development that improves collaboration between developers (Devs) and operators (Ops) to enable faster, more efficient provision of software and services.