Siemens today announced that the latest release of MindSphere, the company’s open cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) operating system, will be hosted for the first time on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This provides the ability to develop robust industrial IoT solutions on a shorter timeline for customers across various industries, especially aerospace and defense as well as energy and utilities.

“We are excited to be working with Siemens to host MindSphere on AWS,” said Terry Wise, vice president of global alliances, ecosystem & channels for Amazon Web Services, Inc. “Siemens’ deep industrial domain knowledge and experience, coupled with the global scalability and security available through AWS, provides its customers with increased capabilities to bring industrial IoT to businesses of all sizes.”

MindSphere delivers a wide range of device and enterprise application connectivity protocol options, industry applications, advanced analytics and an innovative development environment that utilizes both Siemens’ open Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) capabilities along with access to AWS cloud services. Through these capabilities, MindSphere connects real things to the digital world and provides powerful industry applications and digital services to help drive business success. MindSphere’s open PaaS enables a rich partner ecosystem to develop and deliver new applications. Siemens provides business-focused solutions to help drive closed-loop innovation through digital twins for products, production, and performance.

“We’ve listened to our customer’s demand for high availability and global scale, and are embracing a new AWS first approach to MindSphere,” said Steve Bashada, executive vice president of Siemens Cloud Application Services. “Thanks to our collaboration with AWS, Siemens customers and partners will have access to one of the best Industrial IoT Application Programming Interfaces from Siemens, coupled with direct access to AWS services for faster application development.”

MindSphere provides an opportunity to participate in the digital transformation of companies regardless of industry or size. With Siemens’ global base of millions of installed devices, Siemens and its’ partners can develop valuable MindSphere applications through rich application programming interfaces (APIs) and deliver digital services in collaboration with AWS. These collaborations enable MindSphere to provide a holistic set of IoT solutions and services, matching the requirements of our customers, providing numerous opportunities to build and operate digital offerings around MindSphere on AWS.

“Siemens’ open PaaS approach through rich industrial IoT APIs, while enabling partners like Atos to extend the functionality of MindSphere through integration services and application development, is a unique, powerful approach,” explained Philippe Miltin, Atos senior vice president, global head of manufacturing, Retail & Transportation. “We are already delivering solutions and services using MindSphere in multiple industries.”

MindSphere applications are being developed across multiple Siemens business units, with openness as a key cornerstone. At the recent EMO 2017 exhibition in Hannover, Germany, Siemens connected over 240 different machine tools from over 140 manufacturers across the entire exhibition site using its “Manage MyMachines” application on MindSphere. 

“Our cloud-based IoT operating system offers machine manufacturers many different ways to gain a competitive advantage by using their extensive domain expertise and developing high-performance applications for machine operators,” explained Dr. Wolfgang Heuring, CEO of the Siemens Motion Control Business Unit. “This forms the basis for new services and business models.”

Early access to the latest version of MindSphere will be provided for select Siemens partners in November with general availability in January 2018.