Siemens, Alibaba Cloud forge industrial IoT partnership

Siemens will put its MindSphere IoT operating system on Alibaba Cloud as it aims for China. Alibaba gets a key industrial IoT partner.

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 know-how 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.

Alibaba's fourth-quarter cloud revenue puts it on $2.8 billion annual run rate

• Alibaba wants to build a logistics network that can handle 1 billion packages a day
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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 service players.

Siemens and Alibaba Cloud said they will start collaborating immediately.

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