Mercedes-Benz accelerates indigenous software push, invests $217 million

German luxury car major Mercedes-Benz on Friday opened a new software centre in Sindelfingen with an investment of $217 million in an attempt to boost the company's in-house software capabilities. The automaker claims that this in-house software development centre will help it to bring a new operating system MB.OS into the market by 2024. This software development centre is claimed to work on features ranging from in-vehicle entertainment to autonomous driving under the new operating system.

The automaker claims that this software development centre is part of the carmaker's wider effort to streamline its software strategy from a patchwork approach bringing in technology from a wide range of suppliers. The automaker will be able to control the core of its software offering itself with this software development centre, claims Mercedes-Benz.

Speaking about the new software development centre, Mercedes-Benz's Chief Software Officer Magnus Oestberg said that the luxury car company is taking responsibility for software architecture and integration, which is its main goal. "We don’t do everything ourselves – we place value on partnerships, but of course the parts that are most important for us, we do in-house," Oestberg further added.

Mercedes-Benz currently has a partnership with US computer graphics company Nvidia. The two companies struck a deal back in 2020 to develop assisted and self-driving technologies which will form part of the MB.OS system launching in two years time. The automaker also revealed that it is expanding its software development teams with more than 600 engineers to be hired. The company aim to employ a total of 10,000 software engineers in Berlin, China, India, Israel, Japan, and the US.