IT Times reporter Jia Tianrong
On July 24, Siemens' "2024 Greater China Realize LIVE User Conference" opened in Shanghai. As Siemens' annual event in the field of industrial software, the conference gathered more than 1,000 industry experts, business representatives, Siemens experts and excellent partners to open a number of forums and product practical training courses, focusing on the new paradigm of artificial intelligence, industrial metaverse, digital twin and other technologies in industrial applications, and exploring the forefront of digital and intelligent development in the industry.
"More and more companies are now looking to accelerate their digital business, and our business is growing with the needs of the business." During the conference, Tony Hemmelgarn, President and CEO of Siemens Digital Industrial Software, said in an interview with IT Times and other media that the current demand for software services is growing, which is one of the reasons why Siemens continues to expand in the Chinese and global markets.
Liang Naiming, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Siemens Digital Industry Software Greater China, also said that Chinese customers are increasingly demanding product quality and are highly receptive to new technologies: "They have no baggage and are willing to be the first to eat crabs." New energy vehicles are a good example, they are constantly using new technologies and want to do digital transformation faster. ”
Liang Naiming introduced that the current new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating, driving the rapid upgrading of China's industrial digital transformation. As the core technology of digital and real integration, digital twin has entered the "deep water area" of application. In China, Siemens has helped customers in many industries, including automotive, new energy, and FMCG, achieve digital breakthroughs.
Accelerate the transformation of industrial digital intelligence and store energy for new quality productivity
The reporter of "IT Times" learned at the scene that the theme of the conference was "Let Digital Transformation Manifest the Real Chapter", interpreting the opportunities and significance of the deep integration of digitalization, intelligent technology and industry, and showing the vision and measures of Siemens' digital industrial software for the Chinese market in combination with the development needs of promoting new industrialization.
In his opening speech at the conference, Liang Naiming said: "In the era of artificial intelligence, we will integrate Siemens' long-term industrial AI technology into digital technology to form an immersive, interactive, real-time collaborative and sustainable industrial metaverse, and at the same time continue to expand our 'circle of friends' in the value chain, promote customers to embrace new quality productivity with new quality cooperation, and inject surging impetus into the high-quality development of China's economy." ”
Subsequently, a number of customer representatives of Siemens also shared their experience and achievements in cooperation with Siemens, starting with FAW-Volkswagen building a large-scale enterprise-level industrial Internet private cloud platform based on Siemens Insights Hub; Amazon Web Services and Siemens join hands to integrate cloud computing and generative AI to help Chinese manufacturing enterprises seek incremental value; Siemens' industrial software solutions and perfect services are empowering adherents and innovators from all walks of life to "connect the dots" in the end-to-end business chain and multiply performance, efficiency and asset value.
AI + Cloud + Digital Thread + Industrial Metaverse Synergy
At the meeting, Tony Hemmelgarn gave a more in-depth interpretation of Siemens' technical layout in industrial software, saying that it will rely on the integrated development of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, digital thread, industrial metaverse and other technologies to promote industrial enterprises to fundamentally change the way products are conceived, designed, manufactured and served, and achieve sustainability.
According to reports, Siemens' AI technology has been integrated into the digital transformation strategy of many enterprises, helping to improve work efficiency, optimize customer experience and strengthen decision-making. Tony Hemmelgarn introduced Siemens' three thoughts on the application of artificial intelligence in the industrial field: Analyze, Optimize and Generate.
Analytics capabilities can combine natural language processing with AI Copilot, built in Siemens Industry software, to query and process complex data for design, engineering, manufacturing, and field production with simple prompts; At the same time, with the help of AI capabilities, users can optimize processes such as production planning, manufacturing, and factory configuration, and automatically generate design specifications, production manuals, and even geometry.
For AI technology to continue to develop and play a role, computing power is undoubtedly the core driving force. As an indispensable infrastructure for computing power, cloud computing and AI technology complement each other, and the combination of the two creates a solid foundation for the digital and intelligent development of enterprises. With advanced industrial software and industrial AI capabilities, Siemens has partnered with the world's leading cloud service providers to provide businesses of all sizes with convenient, efficient, and cost-effective industrial software options.
Joe Bohman, Executive Vice President of PLM Products for Digital Industries at Siemens, presented the latest innovations in Siemens' Xcelerator-as-a-Service (XaaS) industrial cloud software, including solutions such as NX X, Zel X, Opcenter X, Simcenter X, and Teamcenter X Essentials, throughout the production chain, enabling all parties along the chain to collaborate with the tools and data they need, when and where they need them. Joe Bohman shared that the global cloud computing market will exceed $1 trillion in 2026, which will unlock a lot of value and opportunities compared to the IT market. Siemens Xcelerator as a Service provides a full set of SaaS solutions, and connects all links in the product life cycle based on Siemens' digital thread, providing secure, flexible, out-of-the-box industrial cloud software, while providing personalized and customizable capabilities, integrating Siemens' community strength, enabling industry experts, partners, and Siemens' professional experience and knowledge to empower the ecosystem and jointly promote the implementation and development of industrial cloud solutions.
Tony Hemmelgarn shared the results achieved by Siemens since the implementation of the cloud strategy: "We started deploying the cloud strategy two years ago, and after two years of polishing and development, our cloud business revenue has achieved steady growth, and now 14,000 customers around the world are using our hybrid cloud software-as-a-service (HSaaS) solution, and the results show that Siemens' industrial cloud solutions have helped customers achieve 33% faster time to market and 60% reduction in IT costs. And with built-in scalability, it can meet the development needs of its future business. ”
Integrating enterprise data into workflows is key to product success at every lifecycle stage. To this end, Siemens has launched a digital thread that connects the company's discrete data into a single backbone, connecting processes and tasks along the production chain, eliminating resource silos, improving product quality and accelerating product innovation faster and at a lower cost.
Robert Jones, Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Customer Success of Siemens Digital Industry Software, introduced in his speech that Siemens' digital thread covers 13 industries such as aerospace, automotive, energy, machinery, batteries, and semiconductors, and can be customized according to the different characteristics and needs of each industry. Siemens has built as many as 65 digital threads to help industry users build out-of-the-box business processes.
As a fusion of multiple information technologies, the industrial metaverse brings a cluster effect to the digitalization of industrial enterprises. Through the digital twin established by the industrial metaverse, enterprises can more intuitively understand and manage real-world behavior, and realize real-time synchronization of data at each node. As early as 2022, Siemens began the layout of the industrial metaverse, working with partners such as NVIDIA and Sony, combined with Siemens' industry know-how, to actively promote the innovative application model of the industrial metaverse, helping customers accelerate the pace of digital transformation and enhance sustainability.
"Discover, verify, feel" are the three key words Joe Bohman mentions when referring to Siemens' industrial metaverse strategy. "The industrial metaverse provides us with engineering insights. We work with the world's leading enterprises to jointly promote the application of AI-driven digital twin technology in the field of industrial metaverse, helping customers to deeply discover insight opportunities, quickly and accurately simulate and verify, and engage in immersive interaction with models, so that enterprises of all walks of life and different sizes can harness the capabilities of the industrial metaverse, so as to expand the digital imagination space, open up an innovative path for digital and intelligent upgrading, and enhance core competitiveness. He said.