General Motors today unveiled a state-of-the-art $130-million enterprise data center that will serve as the computing backbone for the automaker’s vast global operations. The center, benchmarked against the best in the world, is the capstone of GM’s efforts to transform its IT operations to help the company work smarter and faster from the design studio to the factory to the showroom floor.
Located at its Technical Center in this Detroit suburb, the facility is the first of two Information Technology Operations and Command centers that bring in-house GM’s global IT infrastructure and consolidate a network of multiple sites. The two centers will integrate and streamline all aspects of product development, manufacturing, marketing, sales and OnStar applications to speed access to any GM employee anywhere in the world.
“Having a single nerve center for our global operations will get newer vehicle designs and technologies into our customers’ hands quicker and improve the bottom line,” said GM Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson. “IT is back home where it should be, and it further drives unnecessary complexity from our businesses while improving our operational efficiency and better supporting our business strategy.”