Mercedes cars, smarter than ever: the investment that betrays the independence of the German giant

Mercedes is accelerating the internal momentum of the software with a new technology center, as it aims to launch its own operating system.

Mercedes-Benz has opened a new 200 million euro software center in Sindelfingen, the latest investment in increasing internal software capabilities, while working to bring its MB.OS operating system to market by 2024. said the carmaker in a statement.

About 750 of the 3,000 new employees the carmaker intends to bring globally to develop the operating system have been hired in Sindelfingen, working in functions from in-vehicle entertainment to self-driving.

The center is part of a larger effort by Mercedes to streamline its software strategy, from an approach that brings technology from a wide range of vendors to controlling the core of its software offering.

“We take responsibility for software architecture and integration – that’s our main goal,” said Chief Software Officer Magnus Oestberg.

“We don’t do everything ourselves – we value partnerships, but of course we do the parts that are most important to us inside.”

We are looking for engineers

One such partnership is with the American company Nvidia, with which Mercedes has concluded an agreement in 2020 to develop assisted and autonomous functions that will be part of the MB.OS system that will be launched in two years.

The carmaker is in 600 vacancies to reach its goal of forming a global team of 10,000 software engineers in Berlin, China, India, Israel, Japan and the United States.

“The profile of a software engineer is highly sought after, the demand is considerably higher than the supply,” said technology director Markus Schaefer.

In a survey of 572 car executives conducted by the Capgemini research institute, 97% said that four out of 10 internal workers will need to have software skills within five years, from IT architects to cloud management professionals to to cybersecurity experts.