BMW eyes strong partner network within China

LAS VEGAS - BMW has the largest engineering team outside of Germany in China, and enjoys a very strong partner network within China, BMW AG board member Frank Weber told Xinhua in an interview.

"We have more than 3,000 people working for BMW engineering in four different locations throughout China. They are focused today on all major areas of the vehicle. The dominant one is software creation in the digital part," Weber told Xinhua on the sidelines of the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held this week in the US city of Las Vegas.

At CES 2025, BMW unveiled its next-generation immersive intelligent cockpit, featuring the revolutionary new BMW Panoramic iDrive and new BMW Operating System X.

Designed with the Chinese users in mind, 70 percent of the source code for BMW's Operating System X has been developed and adapted for local needs.

"This reflects BMW's deep understanding and commitment to the Chinese market, ensuring that the system's core logic aligns perfectly with local users," said the company.

"BMW R&D (research and development) China team has tripled in the last three years and will play a bigger role in BMW's global R&D. Major digital experience for BMW Operating System X in China are developed by China digital R&D team together with the global organization," said Robert Kahlenberg, senior vice president of BMW R&D China.

"A great number of customer functions are specifically developed for China, partnering with China innovation ecosystem and tech players, such as voice assistant, navigation, entertainment and gaming, AI (artificial intelligence) functions," Kahlenberg said.

Weber said China is a very important market to BMW. "We do everything to have the most competitive products for this very competitive environment."

"What is also clear is that the Chinese customers are very interesting customers to us, because they are most advanced in their thinking and how they look at the vehicle," Weber said.

"We have now a very capable team, and 80 percent of the current digital system, (and) the infotainment system is China-specific, and 70 percent of that is developed in China," Weber told Xinhua.

The innovation capabilities of China are not only important for China, but also important for the rest of the world, he noted.

"The speed with which you see innovation in China, the willingness to do some risk, and the culture is creating a very competitive innovation setup," Weber added.