Siemens and NVIDIA preview technology for AI-era manufacturing

Siemens and NVIDIA recently demonstrated a new technology stack currently in development for the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio at the NVIDIA GTC (GPU Technology Conference) in Washington DC.

The demonstration showed how engineers will soon be able to rapidly design, optimise and manage advanced and accurate digital twins for future factories. Utilising the integration between Siemens Xcelerator and NVIDIA Omniverse, the technology will support a new highly realistic digital twin offering that will bring together 3D visualisation, simulation and factory data into one unified, immersive environment. Siemens says it represents a milestone, marking a key step towards realising the industrial metaverse — Siemens’ vision of seamlessly combining the real and digital worlds.

The digital twin software, although still in development, will be one part of a new Siemens tech stack, purpose-built for the AI era, according to the company. Siemens says it will empower manufacturers not only to build but also to continuously optimise the world’s most advanced factories and be used to accelerate planning, engineering and operations.

A key function of the new technology will be how users can bring together their building infrastructure and their production lines in one engineering environment. This includes using AI to simulate hundreds of potential factory layouts to find the most efficient design — in hours rather than days or weeks.

The joint effort combines Siemens’ expertise in manufacturing and industrial technology with NVIDIA’s technology in graphical processing to help customers design smarter, more efficient factories, products and AI data centres.

“Industrial innovation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Together Siemens and NVIDIA are leading the way,” said Peter Koerte, Member of the Managing Board, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Strategy Officer at Siemens. “By combining our strengths in industrial AI, digital twins, automation and building technologies, we are enabling the industrial metaverse — and with it the next generation of factories and AI data centres — delivering the efficiency, power, scalability and intelligence needed to meet growing global demand and shape the future of industry.”

“Digital twins have become essential in the age of industrial AI, enabling the simulation and optimisation of entire production lines and training robotics virtually before a single piece of hardware is installed,” said Rev Lebaredian, Vice President of Omniverse and Simulation Technology at NVIDIA. “Our collaboration with Siemens brings NVIDIA Omniverse to the heart of manufacturing, providing the critical platform capabilities to accelerate the entire factory lifecycle, from concept to operation.”

Image credit: iStock.com/Natalia Lagutkina