Building an industrial AI operating system WRITE @ THE BACK Control systems + automation: Products + services
complex systems in so¦ware, then seamlessly automate and operate them in the physical world.”
Accelerating the industrial lifecycle Siemens and NVIDIA will work together to build AI-accelerated industrial solutions across the full lifecycle of products and production, enabling faster innovation, continuous optimisation, and more resilient, sustainable manufacturing. The companies aim to build the world’s first fully AI-driven, adaptive manufacturing sites globally, starting in 2026 with the Siemens Electronics Factory in Erlangen, Germany, as the first blueprint. Using an ‘AI Brain’ – powered by so¦ware-defined automation and industrial operations so¦ware combined with NVIDIA Omniverse libraries and NVIDIA AI infrastructure – factories can continuously analyse their digital twins, test improvements virtually, and turn validated insights into operational changes on the shopfloor. This will enable faster, more reliable decision-making from design to deployment – raising productivity and reducing commissioning time and risk. The companies aim to scale these capabilities across key verticals and several customers are already evaluating some of the capabilities, including Foxconn, HD Hyundai, KION Group, and PepsiCo. With the partnership expansion, Siemens will complete GPU acceleration across its simulation portfolio and expand support for NVIDIA CUDA-X libraries and AI physics models, enabling customers to run larger, more accurate simulations faster. Building on that foundation, the companies will advance towards generative simulation using NVIDIA PhysicsNeMo and open models to provide autonomous digital twins that deliver real-time engineering design and autonomous optimisation. Shared innovation Siemens and NVIDIA aim to advance each other’s operations and portfolios by implementing technologies on their own systems before scaling them across industries. NVIDIA will assess Siemens offerings to streamline and optimise its own operations and offerings, and Siemens will assess its own workloads and collaborate with NVIDIA to accelerate them and integrate AI into Siemens’ customer portfolio. In this way, Siemens and NVIDIA will also create proof points of value and scalability for customers.
Siemens and NVIDIA have announced a further expansion of their strategic partnership to bring artificial intelligence into the real world: together, the companies aim to develop industrial and physical AI solutions that will bring AI-driven innovation to every industry and industrial workflow. They aim to reinvent the industrial value chain – from design and engineering to manufacturing, production, operations and into supply chains – and in parallel, accelerate each other’s operations. The announcement was made at CES 2026 (the Consumer Electronics Show held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the USA). To support development, NVIDIA will provide AI infrastructure, simulation libraries, models, frameworks and blueprints, and Siemens will commit hundreds of industrial AI experts and leading hardware and so¦ware. “Together, we are building the Industrial AI operating system – redefining how the physical world is designed, built, and run – to scale AI and create real-world impact,” said Roland Busch, President and CEO of Siemens AG. “By combining NVIDIA’s leadership in accelerated computing and AI platforms with Siemens’ leading hardware, so¦ware, industrial AI and data, we’re empowering customers to develop products faster with the most comprehensive digital twins, adapt production in real time, and accelerate technologies from chips to AI factories.” “Generative AI and accelerated computing have ignited a new industrial revolution, transforming digital twins from passive simulations into the active intelligence of the physical world,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Our partnership with Siemens fuses the world’s leading industrial so¦ware with NVIDIA’s full-stack AI platform to close the gap between ideas and reality – empowering industries to simulate Jensen Huang (right), founder and CEO of NVIDIA, and Roland Busch (le), President and CEO of Siemens AG, announce their partnership to build the industrial AI operating system.
For more information visit: https://www.siemens.com
Synchronised control for steel mesh handling system
Automation specialist Hambi Maschinenbau, part of Terhoeven GmbH & Co KG , has developed a world-first system that automates the cutting, handling, and stacking of heavy reinforcing steel mesh – a task that previously required up to six people to manage. By integrating Mitsubishi Electric’s drive and control technologies connected via CC-Link IE TSN, Hambi has achieved millimetre-level precision and smooth synchronisation across motion, safety, and vision systems in a single, unified network.
of wire are welded into large mats, which must then be cut to size and stacked for transport. This was a labour-intensive process requiring workers to li¦, align, cut, and stack the heavy meshes. It was also considered a diicult task to automate, as the weight and flexibility of the mats means that even small deviations in alignment can cause major issues. However, Van Merksteijn International BV , a leading steel processor, was determined to overcome these challenges. It asked Hambi to develop an automated solution that could detect and compensate for any alignment variations in real time. The result was the ASA (automatic cutting system) – a six- metre-high, 40-metre-long machine that automates every stage Continued on page 9
Tackling a demanding manual process In the production of reinforcing steel mesh, long lengths
8 Electricity + Control FEBRUARY 2026
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