Siemens, Alibaba Cloud forge industrial IoT partnership
Siemens and Alibaba Cloud said they will partner to build out the industrial Internet of things in China.
Under the partnership, which was inked in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang watching, Siemens and Alibaba Cloud agreed to use each other's technology.
For Siemens, the partnership with Alibaba Cloud gives it a foothold in China's IoT market with its MindSphere platform. Alibaba Cloud, which has been growing at a rapid clip by leveraging its Chinese customer base, gets industry knowhow and access to larger enterprises.
Alibaba Cloud may also get access to a more diverse customer base given Siemens is a global IT player. Developers have been favoring AWS and Microsoft Azure as IoT platforms. Alibaba Cloud has a $2.8 billion annual revenue run rate.
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As for specifics, Siemens said its MindSphere IoT operating system will be available on Alibaba Cloud. MindSphere on Alibaba Cloud will be available in 2019.
Alibaba Cloud has surfaced on Gartner's Magic Quadrant as one of six global infrastructure as a service players.
Siemens and Alibaba Cloud said they will start collaborating immediately.
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