In the context of the German-Chinese economic talks and in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser and Simon Hu , the cloud manager of Alibaba, have signed a letter of intent to collaborate to build an industrial IoT infrastructure in China . The two companies want to support the further development of Chinese industry that way. Specifically, the idea is that the IoT system MindSphere from Siemens will be available in the future via the Alibaba cloud . The project is scheduled to start in the coming year.

MindSphere is an open cloud platform developed by Siemens, often referred to as the IoT operating system. It collects and analyzes sensor data (for example from machines) in real time and makes it accessible to digital applications, called MindApps . In this way, companies can optimize products or production processes on the basis of tangible data. The Alibaba Group operates the B2B trading platform Alibaba.com , the online auction house Tobao , and the Alibaba cloud. With currently around 66,500 employees, Alibaba is the largest IT company in China.