Audi is putting its Edge Cloud 4 Production (EC4P) into operation across its production environment, and in vehicle assembly at German plants the move to the cloud has already eliminated the need for more than 1,000 industrial PCs. In the A5 and A6 body shop in Neckarsulm, virtual programmable logic controllers (vPLC) are replacing local hardware controllers, and around 100 robots work together via EC4P with millisecond precision, enabling several hundred vehicle bodies to be manufactured every day in three shifts.
“The first AI-controlled robots are taking over tasks that are ergonomically strenuous, and chatbots are providing additional relief,” explains Gerd Walker, Member of the Board of Management for Production and Logistics at Audi, in the media release of January 27, 2026.
EC4P combines conventional automation technology with flexibility and computing power from the cloud, which Audi says simplifies processes, reduces the hardware required on site and lets new functions be introduced more quickly. In vehicle assembly, worker guidance is increasingly controlled centrally from the cloud, so employees on the line receive information such as vehicle specifications or regional versions from a central source in real time. Audi is implementing the interaction between virtualization platform, network and automation technology with Broadcom, Cisco and Siemens.
The Weld Splatter Detection (WSD) system detects weld splatter on the underbody of a car body at Neckarsulm and marks it with light, and after a recent upgrade a robot arm grinds the splatter down. The Volkswagen Group's first AI-supported weld spatter detection system will soon go into series production at six plants in Ingolstadt, and WSD will run on EC4P in the future.
Audi is also developing ProcessGuardAIn, its own AI solution for monitoring manufacturing processes, built on the cross-plant P-Data Engine platform that combines system and plant data from production at a uniform quality level. Based on machine and sensor data, it monitors production steps in real time, detects anomalies at an early stage and informs experts. A pilot phase for two use cases is ongoing at the Neckarsulm paint shop, dosage optimization in pretreatment and anomaly detection in cathodic dip coating, with introduction into series production planned for the second quarter of 2026. Audi is also testing AI-supported dryer operation at Neckarsulm, developed with the appliedAI initiative and CVET GmbH, and will test how much energy can be saved until summer 2026.
In the Next2OEM project, Audi is working with ten partners at its Ingolstadt headquarters on a demonstrator, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, to show how wiring loom production and assembly can be digitized and automated from supplier to installation. Audi says ProcessGuardAIn could in future serve as a central tool for predictive maintenance and quality assurance in all plants.