By Jurgita Šikšnienė (UAB Metis Baltic), 21st May, 2025
At the heart of Munich’s high-tech district, in the sleek atrium of Infineon Technologies AG, more than 100 engineers, researchers, policymakers, and innovators gathered for a shared purpose: to reimagine the future of software defined vehicles. But this wasn’t just another industry conference – it was the European SDV Ecosystem Summit 2025, a living demonstration of what Europe can achieve in the mobility area.
Hosted by FEDERATE and funded through the CHIPS Joint Undertaking, the Summit carried a clear theme — “From Building Blocks to Start of Production (SOP).” Yet behind the slides and session titles, a deeper story was unfolding: one of convergence, collaboration, and a quiet revolution in how vehicles will be designed, built, and evolved.
The opening notes
The day began with the words of Oliver Höing, from Germany’s Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, and moments later, Thomas Schneid, Senior Director Software, at Infineon Technologies AG took the stage. The keynote on RISC-V-based microcontrollers outlined a bold vision: how Europe can own its hardware destiny while embracing flexibility, modularity, and security in ways proprietary architectures never allowed.
RISC-V, he explained, isn’t just a chip design — it’s a philosophy. One that aligns perfectly with the demands of SDVs, where vehicles become software platforms on wheels, and compute units evolve from embedded boxes into orchestrated systems.
For Michael Paulweber (AVL List GmbH) and Daniel Watzenig from Virtual Vehicle, the Summit marked a milestone as they were building the Software-Defined Vehicle of the Future (SDVoF) – mapping functions, defining building blocks, and architecting the meta-framework.
Now, for the first time, the public saw the FEDERATE Building Block Repository live in action. It was a curated library of reusable software modules: tagged, versioned, and ready for integration. The repository is a symbol — of how open collaboration can move faster than closed development ever could.
“This is how Europe builds SDVs,” said Michael Paulweber. “Not in isolation, but through orchestration.”
SDV out of the box
If the morning laid the groundwork, the afternoon sessions followed with more specific messages.
Sara Gallian (The Eclipse Foundation) and Detlef Zerfowski (Bosch/ETAS) demonstrated S-CORE, a middleware framework that turned the SDV promise into modular reality. It was flexible, multi-domain, and open — built not just for one OEM or one supplier, but for all.
Next came COVESA’s Vehicle Signal Specification (VSS), presented by Jan Kubovy (BMW) and Emil Dautovic (RemotiveLabs). Their demo showed how standardized data signals could flow from vehicle to cloud and back — enabling diagnostics, analytics, and services without rewriting the wheel every time.
Michael Niklas-Höret (Continental) and Bernhard Rill (ARM) took it further. Through AUTOSAR and SOAFEE, they described a layered world where containers run side-by-side with real-time applications, and Kubernetes clusters power the next generation of automotive services — securely, modularly, and with OTA capabilities baked in.
Real projects = real progress
The day’s most energizing moment may have been the SDV Project Track, where three flagship initiatives pulled back the curtain on their latest progress:
- HAL4SDV, led by TTTech, showcased a hardware abstraction layer with built-in fault containment and secure enclaves — a platform designed for safety-critical performance across heterogeneous ECUs.
- CODE4EV, from Armengaud Innovate, translated model-based EV features into deployable, testable software through an automated CI/CD toolchain.
- Twin-Loop, from Mosaic Factor, wowed attendees with an open framework enabling bi-directional data flows between vehicle, backend, and cloud — built for OTA, analytics, and predictive intelligence.
And these were not just the concepts. They were frameworks running on real hardware, validated through test benches, and ready for pilots. “The move from R&D to reality,” as one of the participants said, “has never felt closer.”
What comes next?
Mario Driussi of Virtual Vehicle took the stage one last time to close the day. He spoke not of technologies, but of people — of communities, of maintainers, of contributors and collaborators who would now take the step forward.
And one message echoed through the atrium louder than the rest, it was this: the Software-Defined Vehicle is no longer a vision — it’s a network.
A network of minds.
Of repositories.
Of standards.
Of code.
And this Summit was the first real assembly of the European SDV network — alive, active, and accelerating.
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