Volkswagen to open its new data analysis centre in Barcelona

The German multinational Volkswagen has chosen Barcelona to install its global data analysis centre, known as its data lab, and which will be the third of the group’s centres on an international level, after Munich and San Francisco.

This new centre is a demonstration of the group’s strategic priority in working on projects related to mobility and efficient driving thanks to data collected from driver behaviour and from connected devices. This new area of investigation is becoming more and more important thanks to the increasing amount of data being collected on drivers, their habits and their cars, and which can not only favour more efficient cars, but also help create more effective parking and transit solutions.

This new data analysis project coincides with SEAT’s launch of an innovative start-up accelerator for mobility projects aimed at creating an ecosystem in this field, taking advantage of Barcelona’s appeal and potential in the area, something which the SEAT’s president commented on the recent Car Show in Paris. These new movements taken by the brand are an example of how Volkswagen is dedicating a larger part of its investment in developing new mobility services–a new division that the Group’s president Matthias Müller is calling brand number 13. This growing interest in mobility services, as can be seen by the brand’s activity in Barcelona, is part of a wider corporate realignment over digital services, electric vehicles and autonomous driving.