Bosch Group’s digital transformation journey began back in 2012 when CEO Dr. Volkmar Denner decided it was time to make all the company’s products IP-enabled. Since they’ve sold millions of connected devices per year and are now embarking on the next phase of their digital transformation journey: AIoT.

What is AIoT you ask? It is the combination of artificial intelligence and the internet of things (IoT), a marriage that will enable companies such as Bosch to build the next generation of self-learning, connected devices. In other words, by adding AI to IoT, Bosch will be able to mine the vast amounts of customer data these devices generate to in real-time“improve our products and services on an ongoing basis.”

While this is great for the everyday consumer, when it comes to applications in healthcare, agriculture and clean energy, the impact of AI-enhanced IoT could be monumental. 

For example, in the field of video security, “video analysis based on neural networks opens up new possibilities. To this end, Bosch is integrating detectors both into new cameras and into an AI box that can be connected to installed devices. The first application is a traffic detector that will initially be able to detect and locate vehicles precisely in busy traffic situations, even under difficult lighting conditions. The more data that flows into the customer application, the more AI will be able to do, including accurate accident detection.”

Bosch’s goal is for, in one way or another, the company’s entire portfolio to incorporate AI by 2025. Here are a couple of ways they’ve laid the groundwork for success. 

The Road to AIoT

To start, Bosch launched its Center for Artificial Intelligence (BCAI), essentially a center of excellence (CoE) for AI, in 2017. “Using data from Bosch's various business divisions, we conduct cutting-edge research that focuses on safe, secure, robust, and explainable AI. We design and implement AI for smart, connected, and autonomous technologies across Bosch business sectors,” the team’s website explains. 

But that’s not all. In order to support its bold, technological ambitions, Bosch had to transform its backbone of innovation: the IT department. As Dr. Elmar Pritsch, Bosch Group’s CIO explained in a recent case study by SUSE, “The importance of IT solutions in the connected world continues to grow, be­cause they are becoming an essential part of the products and their related services. This is why we have systematically realigned our in-house IT division over the past several months. We used to primarily ensure efficient in-house IT infrastructure, but today, we are focusing more on advancing digital business models created by Bosch.”

In order to deliver the real-time analytics its digital-enabled product required, Bosch needed to integrate its SAP applications into one central system. In the aforementioned case study, Volker Fischer, senior manager of server services for AIX and Linux at Bosch Group, elaborates, “To support all of our business sectors in developing innovative business models for the future, in integrating their new offer­ings into existing ERP systems easily and in leveraging advanced new data analytics tools, we needed to refresh our infrastruc­ture with the latest technologies such as the SAP HANA in-memory database. And in preparation for our broader transforma­tion initiative at Bosch, we also needed to improve the scalability of our infrastruc­ture.”

Turning Expertise into Cash

At this point in time, Bosch is in the process of piloting dozens of AIoT powered products ranging from wearable fitness devices to industrial equipment. However, how many of these projects result in viable commercial products is certainly yet to be seen. 

While Bosch’s goal of embedding AI into all of its products by 2025 is certainly exciting from a PR perspective, it does beg the question as to why? 

Using AI to optimize the management of expensive, industrial equipment or to build better lithium ion batteries may make sense. However, using AI to monitor home appliances such as fridges and coffee makers? The financial, data privacy and environmental risks alone call this into question. 

Regardless of the outcome, it will be interesting to see where Bosch’s bold and imaginative digital strategy takes them. 

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