Siemens has expanded its collaboration with NVIDIA to bring industrial AI directly to factory floors, addressing manufacturing challenges including skilled labour shortages, widening skills gaps from expert retirement, and increased demand for resilient production systems. Matthias Loskyll, head of virtual control and industrial AI at Siemens Factory Automation, outlined how the partnership leverages AI, simulation and digital twins to unlock new productivity and flexibility levels for global manufacturers.
Siemens' Inspekto AI-driven visual quality inspection system enables small manufacturers to automate defect detection in production lines. The system can be trained in under an hour using as few as 20 product samples, making it accessible for electronics and metal forming applications. The technology addresses manufacturing tasks previously considered too complex or variable for traditional programming approaches.
Automaker Audi implemented industrial AI in car body shops where 5 million welds are made daily. Training AI models to automate weld-spot inspection and integrating them with Siemens' Industrial AI Suite helped Audi achieve up to 25x faster inference directly on the shop floor, enabling immediate defect addressing capabilities. The implementation demonstrates how AI can handle high-volume, precision-critical manufacturing processes.
Siemens is developing AI-driven vision software enabling robots to handle arbitrary, previously unseen objects while creating Industrial Copilots with NVIDIA NIM microservices. These copilots bring generative AI-powered assistance directly to shopfloor operators and service technicians. Loskyll noted that Industrial Copilots will run on premises to keep sensitive production data secure while enabling rapid troubleshooting and process optimisation.
The convergence of AI technologies with digital twins opens pathways for designing and optimising safe, efficient interactions between AI-powered robots and smart manufacturing spaces. This approach addresses the manufacturing industry's turning point where traditional automation meets advanced AI capabilities for handling complex, variable production scenarios.
The collaboration addresses critical manufacturing workforce challenges by automating complex inspection and quality control processes that previously required skilled technicians. On-premises Industrial Copilots provide AI assistance while maintaining data security requirements essential for sensitive production environments.
Siemens' partnership with NVIDIA positions both companies to capture significant market opportunities in industrial automation as manufacturers seek AI solutions for labour shortage challenges. The 25x performance improvement at Audi demonstrates compelling ROI potential for large-scale manufacturers considering industrial AI adoption, while Inspekto's accessibility enables smaller manufacturers to implement advanced automation capabilities.