Kyndryl Announces Cloud Data Infrastructure Services for BMW Group

Kyndryl (NYSE: KD), a global IT infrastructure services provider, and NetApp, a data management solutions provider, announced that based on their deep experience and partnership in the automotive industry, they will jointly provide critical enterprise data infrastructure for all BMW Group data centers in 17 countries across five continents; among them, Germany, the United States and China are considered key markets.

According to the plan, Kyndryl's digital infrastructure services and NetApp's cloud-oriented, data-centric software technologies will be effectively combined. As a technology integrator and operating partner for enterprise digital transformation, Kyndryl will use its expertise and global influence to manage enterprise storage infrastructure that is critical to the automotive manufacturing production process, innovate storage-as-a-service projects, and provide cloud data infrastructure services for all data center operations of the BMW Group in 17 countries on five continents. As a result, the BMW Group's critical systems will be guaranteed operational stability covering global business. At the same time, NetApp provides hybrid cloud data infrastructure for the needs of all BMW Group data centers, providing the industry's best network storage (NAS) and extended storage infrastructure. The powerful combination ensures that the BMW Group has continuous data availability, uninterrupted service delivery, and convenient data mobility, whether in the data center or in the cloud, so as to accelerate innovation and obtain data value.

In the automotive industry, Kyndryl is providing services to 8 of the world's 10 largest automotive companies - this is also the key value of Kyndryl. Kyndryl's managed infrastructure as a service provides customers with stable system operation and higher availability, while reducing the cost and various problems derived from the management of customers' self-managed infrastructure. BMW's case also reflects the current development trend of digital infrastructure in the automotive manufacturing industry.

A recent McKinsey study on the change in consumer decision-making patterns for car purchases found that nearly 60% of consumers in all regions and age groups are unwilling to go to showrooms at all; most potential buyers want to evaluate, configure and purchase vehicles online rather than directly contact dealers and sales staff. This means that automakers need to provide a more complex and complete digital shopping experience, fully displaying the functions of the vehicle, such as smart infotainment, temperature control, and optional performance modes. At the same time, the automotive manufacturing industry is turning to hybrid and all-electric platforms to try to reduce dependence on fossil fuels to solve environmental problems and meet government requirements. This also places high demands on the IT infrastructure of automakers: only cloud-based IT infrastructure can provide availability, scalability and security while maintaining operations and controlling costs, ensuring that manufacturers can improve the entire production and manufacturing process without affecting business. This requires automakers to have the ability to collect, store, analyze and protect big data, and build a future-oriented data infrastructure and system platform.

Today's automotive manufacturing industry is as dependent on information technology as it is on steel, rubber and glass. The industry is at a critical turning point that will determine its development and survival in the coming decades, and strategic and innovative partnerships are the only way forward. Kyndryl's deep industry expertise, first-class partners, a diverse ecosystem of solutions and excellent service delivery are helping automakers such as BMW to anticipate and meet future needs and stay ahead in this highly competitive industry.