More efficient factories: How Siemens wants to change production with Nvidia

Artificial Intelligence (AI) sees Roland Busch, Chairman of the Board of Management of Siemens, as a “century opportunity for Germany”. The technology group ensures that this is also used with all its efforts. On Monday, board member Cedrik Neike announced in Erlangen an intensified cooperation with the American AI chip manufacturer Nvidia. This fit well with the investor summit in Berlin, in which Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang participated. Siemens has been working with Nvidia for years and can advise the German government in the planned cooperation with the US company. But Neike, who will be given good chances to succeed Busch in the spring of 2030, wanted to present the next stage of the industrial revolution in the Siemens city of Erlangen. Siemens relies on Nvidia’s technology to leverage its vast wealth of data from industry. One example is the equipment plant in Erlangen, where new AI solutions are used for industrial production. The applications used AI and digital twins to accelerate production start-up and adapt production planning faster to changing conditions. “The historic opportunity for Germany and Europe lies in bringing artificial intelligence from data centers to factories – and using it on an industrial scale,” said Neike, who heads the Digital Industries division responsible for industrial automation and software on the Siemens Board of Management. If the factories have been automated to 30 to 40 percent so far, it would now go with the help of AI in the direction of 70 to 80 percent. The electronics plant in Erlangen uses AI solutions that are unique in the industry. “The future of industry is not only discussed here, but is already a reality today,” Neike emphasized. Factories must be able to handle changes as well as repetitions. AI and simulation make this possible, said Rev Lebaredian, vice president of physical AI simulation at Nvidia. How this should succeed, the two partners want to prove in Erlangen. Lebaredian spoke of a blueprint for autonomous factories in the world. Neike sees AI applications as a great opportunity for Germany as a production location in order to compete with low-wage countries. Thanks to AI, it considers productivity increases of seven to nine percent per year possible. This would ensure employment in high-wage countries. “It is about the survival of production in Germany, but also in Singapore,” he said. In the case of new printed circuit boards, the core element of the drives and frequency converters manufactured in Erlangen, the effort of engineers can be reduced by up to 85 percent and the time to market by up to 40 percent. Siemens attributes this progress to the significantly faster quality testing of the new printed circuit boards using AI instruments. In addition, production planning by AI agents, as used by Siemens in Erlangen, will be up to 20 percent cheaper. “Unique and very attractive” For Neike, Nvidia is the most important partner to develop AI applications for industry. “Nvidia is unique and a very attractive partner,” he said. The cooperation with the US company is, in his words, very broad. According to Neike, Nvidia also benefits from the cooperation: “We build the supercomputers with which Nvidia can test new chips.” For Nvidia manager Lebaredian, his company is about creating new value, but not about taking away market share from others. In order to bring AI into the world of production, Siemens is the ideal partner. Nvidia uses many Siemens products, he added. Neike described the data stock that Siemens has from industry as a hidden treasure. Now it is about lifting this and bringing it into certain structures. For Lebaredian, every company has to ask itself how it wants to deal with its data stocks. It could be useful to share them with others in order to generate even more value. The data that is considered important for your own business should remain in the company.