>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's theCUBE, with coverage of SUSECON Digital, brought you by SUSE. (upbeat music) >> Welcome back. I'm Stu Miniman and this is theCUBE's coverage of SUSECON Digital. And really excited to welcome to the program a first time guest, and he's relatively fresh off the keynote, Alexander Kocher, who is the President and Managing Director of Elektrobit, talking about autonomous vehicles. Alex, thanks so much or joinin' us. >> Thank you, Stu, for inviting me. >> All right, so you know, definitely really interesting technologies, and a lot of talent. So many of the ways we talk about in the IT industry, to talk about cloud computing, edge impacting things, how AI fits into the world, and the balance between people and technology. Well, your company's living it. So why don't we start a little bit. Elektrobit, at least from the research I've done and from the keynote, you are a software company if I have it right. And autonomous vehicles is really what you're driving for. But give our audience a little bit of Elektrobit where you fit in the market today. >> Yeah, Elektrobit, so you can say we are software creatrs unlocking the future of mobility. We are pioneering software in the automotive industry since more than 30 years, empowering already now more than 1 billion devices, in hundreds of millions of cars, and serving since more than 30 years the automotive industry. So as software is becoming the second biggest enabler of the innovation in the car, we are driving this with our technologies. We are focusing on software infrastructure solutions, so coming from the deep, deep layers in the car, up to the HMI, up to the user interface, and providing there specific technologies for really building the basis, and able our customers to focus on their innovations. So this is car infrastructure software. This is software for autonomous driving, as you said. And this is application software mainly in the tooling to create fancy and good-looking user interfaces in modern vehicles. >> Yeah, wow, 30 years. You know most people don't think about software that long in the automotive industry. Of course anybody that owned a car understands that a lot of times it no longer, ya know, people going under the hood, but they're plugging something in and going on a computer, understand what that is. If you could, give us a little bit, what are the trends going on? We've been talking for the last couple a years, if you talk from an autonomous vehicle stand point. Probably people have seen the five stages model that's been put out there, everything from some driver-assist technologies, to a fully autonomous vehicle. But what are you seeing, your software, the companies you supply to and the users, what's happening there? >> So, I would class the trends at the moment in our industry in three blocks. There is electrification, where software is for sure playing a role, but is more used as a supporting technology. Here dominating innovation is coming from other technologies like battery, fuel cells, charging mechanisms, and so on. But then the second trend and the third trend, automated driving and connectivity, to really make the car part of the internet, these are two mega trends where software is dominating the scene, and really also dominating the value of the car as well. And I think these are the trends. We need for all of those to develop new car connectors, similar to server infrastructures already, so that you can seamlessly integrate applications, services from the cloud into the car. And I think these are the trends. And the partnership we are the moment working with SUSE is really coming into play as well to combine experiences from other industries, from other technologies, open source technologies with the embedded world. And create added value for our customer. >> Yeah so let's dig into that SUSE partnership a little bit. Obviously community is a big thing that's talked about there, at the show and from SUSE's customers. There's what can we learn, what is the role of open source, and how do we really enable innovation? So what's important about the partnership with SUSE? >> I think, let me give a little bit of a background. So when becoming an IT device, the amount of software, the complexity is increasing like hell. What he have at the moment, round about 10% created by software in the car, we will see 30% value created by software in 10 years from now. And this is done by a disruptive change in the development model. At the moment we stopped developing functions and features at the point when we introduce the car into the market. This will completely change. Just think about a mobile device like I have it here in my hand. During the whole life cycle of this device, which is of course much shorter than the life cycle of a car, you will innovate and update functions here. This will also be introduced in the next generation, which is under development at the moment, of cars. So that you can update applications, new services during the whole life cycle of the car. And this requires new platforms. It doesn't stop at the introduction of the car. It will continue over a real, real long period of time, years it takes, even. We have a long maintenance cycles. And therefore you need to have new partnership models, and also other technologies where this is already applied with other technologies in other industries. And here our partnership really comes into play, where we need to even get other talent pools. other pools of creativity, other pools of and forces of innovation, so that we really enable with existing methods, new methods, our customers to focus on their differentiating functions to compete against their competitor. And here exactly our partnership is targeting it. >> Okay so it sounds like we're talking specifically Linux means that there's a common underlying programming model, and that there's a skill set pool out there. Am I getting that right? >> Yes, correct. At the moment, so the automotive industry stands for reliable, high performance, high quality of cars and maintaining these features and essential functions over a long, long period of time. But when using embedded technologies, you are endangered always to re-implement it again and again and reuse is not necessarily that what is implemented here from one generation to the other, completely innovated sometimes, And here with other technologies, like you're doing with Linux for example, an open source, you open up a complete new field of innovation and creativity, and of course also access to talent pools, which is very much limited at the very moment in the embedded world as well. >> Alex, I'm curious how Elektrobit thinks about data. Number one, all the training data, how AI is done. Is there any industry sharing going on with that discussion? Let's start there and then maybe we'll talk a little bit about security when we get through the basic data points. >> (laughs) Yeah so, indeed, just think about cars. One of the most accurate sensor in our environment, with all the sensors you have, camera sensors, radio sensors, liter sensors, and so on and so forth, which create a hell lot amount of data, a terabyte by day. And of course this is something which needs to be shared, because the road infrastructure, we talked about this beforehand, is the same independent, whether it's a BMW car, whether it's a GM car, whether it's a Ford car, or a Daimler car, or a Toyota. So it's for all the cars the same car infrastructure. And of course there's a lot of discussion ongoing to share this data. Although now when making business out of that, the business model needs to, as you mentioned, for sure recognize and respect the privacy of the data in order to make business out of that. >> Excellent-- >> So then--Sorry >> Please, please continue. >> So yes, I think there is discussion ongoing. And already in, for example, in map data and traffic control, there is already ongoing the share of the data amongst the manufacturers as well. >> Excellent. And of course, security is paramount. When I look at Elektrobit, cyber security is prominent in the automotive discussion. How does that play in? What's the experience that you've had there from the security side. >> Yeah, so Elektrobit, so we built up our security, but really coming from inside the car. Now three years ago we acquired a company with out mother company together which is now integrated and consolidated within Elektrobit. It's called Argus Cyber Security from Tel Aviv in Israel. And with that we are now able to really provide solutions, end to end solutions from deep inside the car up to the cloud, so that the data stream is secure to the highest standards of security, of course. And this is, on the long side, really securing remote control, maintenance of the car, but also then privacy in terms when you download new services, when you provide information into the cloud where you are. For example we talked abut this data as new currency from the sensors existing in the car. So for that reason exactly we acquired this company with their technologies we are able to provide end to end solutions also for the existing software we are providing to our customers. >> Right, Alex, I'm curious just when you talk about autonomous vehicles, anything distinct about Europe? I think about the challenge and the opportunity. Number one, you're in Germany. You've got some of the best highways in the world. Well thought-out, really well architected. But throughout Europe you also have some the oldest cities where it could be really challenging to traverse. So anything different you might be able to share with our audience about what we should look for for that journey of autonomous vehicle in Europe? >> So... basically your question, already lined it out. So yes, I think autonomous driving and it's starting with functions like hybrid pilot so that you really create a kind of a clean room, where you have a very well-defined environment, where you can start to drive autonomous, and really hands off, eyes off, so level three, level four. In old cities, the structure is yeah, grown, grown over hundreds of years. So it's for sure not foreseen for autonomous driving, at that point in time. Or let's say at that point in time you had an autonomous vehicular horse which found all the time the stable. But nowadays it's a little bit different. So the more difficult environment is for sure the center of cities. And there it will take a while. But we are on the go by going really step by step from a very well-defined environment like a highway, where you can define certain use cases. And with the evolution of sensors, with the evolution of algorithms, with the evolution of processing power, then go step by step to a more complex environment like inner cities. >> Excellent. What should people be looking for when it comes to autonomous vehicles? What can you give us on the next 12 to 24 months, what you're expecting in the industry? >> So I think at the moment, I think in the 12 to, we're still in the face when it comes to autonomous driving, we have driver assistance functions evolving from there. A level two, level two plus. Level three functions where you really then have hands off, will probably come in two, three, four years. Here it's not only the industry by itself who is the limiting factor, but also the regulations on the outside. We just recently saw the announcement of Audi that homologation related to topics at the moment not clear. This is also to be considered. Technology is already prepared, ie, I'm now, even with driver-assistance functions, able to drive. I had an experience with my car by 200km/hr around the curve, and pulling the steers a little bit off So it's still in the face. You have to be aware that you can control. So the function itself is already existing. But homologation that you really can do this for more than 10 seconds, this is the critical thing. And really be prepared techonology for all the eventual things. So here we have limiting factors also from the regulations around that. And this is basically what we have to deal with. So just recently announced by Audi A8 in the introduction. >> Excellent stuff. All right, Alex, I want to give you the final word. Just share with the audience at SUSECON, what it means for Elektrobit to participate in this partnership. >> Yeah, I think the main thing of this partnership is really that we... We are enabled to really provide and infrastructure which fulfills the complete requirements of the car industry. So long-term maintenance, enablement of secure downloads during the whole life cycle of the car, and reusabilty, backward compatibility which is very important thing as well, when you produce technologies for products which have a very long product life cycle. And with the experience SUSE brings into play from other industries, with their solutions, with their Linux distributions and container technologies, with our experience from the automotive industry, I'm really sure that with that partnership, we enable our customers to focus on their innovations, and we enable ourselves to provide the basic solutions for the industry, and for... new future intelligent vehicles. >> All right, well, thank you so much for sharing all of the updates. Fascinating stuff. Thank you so much for joining. >> Thank you, Stu, for inviting me. >> All right, lots more coverage from SUSECON Digital '20. I'm Stu Miniman and thank you for watching theCUBE. (upbeat music)