Lidl Owner Conquers Cloud Hosting Market, Takes on AI
Lidl is one of the largest grocery chains in Poland and the world. Few people know, however, that for several years the brand owner has also been investing heavily in new technologies.
Lidl reaches for artificial intelligence
Lidl has been operating in the hosting market since 2021, and is now also entering the artificial intelligence market. Already in 2021, the Schwarz Group, the owner of the Lidl brand, created cloud hosting system for the needs of its own business. All Lidl stores and Kaufland, which belongs to the same group, are based on this hosting. In 2023, the group decided to make the technology available to external companies as well. At that time, new brand Schwarz Digits. Her clients include, among others: Bayern Munich Football Club. Last year, Lidl’s technology arm generated revenues of €1.9 billion.
We started not out of a desire for profit, but out of a need to satisfy our own needs. Now we are growing very dynamically
– Christian Muller, CEO of Schwarz Digits, does not hide his joy with the decisions taken.
Servers meet EU requirements
The company’s advantage is the fact that all servers are located in European Union countries. Thus, they meet EU legal requirements, which are often problematic even for giants such as Amazon. Additionally, the fact that all data, such as Lidl and Kaufland, are located on Schwarz Digits servers, inspires the trust of other European customers. The success of the hosting project has prompted the owner of Lidl to go a step further in matters of modern technology. Most recently, Schwarz Digits became one of the main investors in the AI start-up Aleph Alpha. At the same time, the company banned its employees from using ChatGPT due to concerns about data security.
See: Lidl opens hardware store. 3-hour queue
See: Unexpected competitor of Allegro and Amazon. From August 7 in Poland
