SAP and Software AG announced today that they will be cooperating on the development of an open Smart City platform. The platform will enable cities, communities and administrative districts to implement their own Smart City and Smart Country projects on an independent basis and to offer their citizens new intelligent services. SAP and Software AG made the announcement at the Smart Country Convention, which took place from November 20-22 in Berlin.

Germany’s two largest software companies have developed the Smart City platform in compliance with the standards of the European Union’s Open Urban Platform initiative. The platform is a coordinated interplay of Internet of Things (IoT), big data and artificial intelligence (AI) components and includes a development platform for smart applications. It integrates existing data silos and is open for the solutions of other providers, from municipal enterprises and IT services providers to Smart City startups, thus also supporting national digital sovereignty in Germany.

“Together with SAP, we will develop a future-oriented digital platform for communities in Germany,” said Werner Rieche, Regional President for the DACH Countries at Software AG. “The platform will enable cities, communities and municipal enterprises to confidently design their own networked administration and new intelligent services on a collaborative basis.”

At the Smart Country Convention, SAP and Software AG presented a joint showcase project in which a winter service vehicle delivers a range of relevant salting and gritting data to the cloud via sensors in real time, with the data then available for further processing on the SAP HANA platform. Software AG contributes various IoT services, for example, for equipment management, the onboarding of sensors and the transfer of data to the platform. The exhibit also included solutions for networked machines from Sensor-Technik Wiedemann, a salt spreader for use in winter road service from Kugelmann and an environmental data sensor from Greatech.

“Smart countries and cities can only be achieved with the aid of a smart and open platform,” said Susanne Diehm, Head of Public Services & Healthcare and Member of the Management Board, SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG. “The shared use of our platform will ensure a high degree of data control and cost efficiency for all members of the municipal family.”