Aiming to bridge the gap between imagination and reality in the industrial metaverse, Siemens is forging exciting partnerships and unveiling innovative products.
At the January 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Siemens announced new partnerships with Sony and AWS. The company asserts making leaps in artificial intelligence and immersive engineering to enable the industrial metaverse based on its Xcelerator open digital business platform.
The term "metaverse" refers to a virtual reality space where users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users in real time.
While this term is generally used for games and social media, ‘industrial metaverse’ on the other hand is a constantly active digital realm where real-world machinery, factories, cities, and transportation systems are mirrored virtually.
This concept is crucial because it allows for swift problem detection, analysis, and resolution in a digital environment. It serves as a platform for testing new ideas, fostering innovation, and supporting hands-on work on-site through virtual reality…
…And this is what Siemens is exploring
Siemens has signed an immersive partnership deal with Sony to unveil an innovative solution, blending Siemens Xcelerator's industry software portfolio with Sony's cutting-edge spatial content creation system.
Anticipated to launch this year, this system includes the XR head-mounted display boasting high-quality 4K OLED Microdisplays and controllers designed for seamless interaction with 3D objects.
“The Sony device is really an engineering and design device, right? I mean, it's going to be an expensive device which is optimized with a CAT system to develop it,” Cedrik Neike, CEO of Siemens Digital Industries, told Interesting Engineering.
Neike hinted that the product, specially designed for the industrial metaverse, will soon go into mass production.
“This is a headset along with a couple of devices. There's actually a ring that you wear and there's a 3D stylus that you put on…” Brenda Discher, Head of Communications at Siemens, told Interesting Engineering. “You can even pick the edges of a 3D model and manipulate the model and collaborate with engineers anywhere else in the world.”
Deviating a bit into the AI space, recently Siemens also partnered up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to make it simpler for businesses in various industries to build and expand generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Devising 'bedrock'
Siemens is integrating Amazon Bedrock, a service providing high-performing foundation models from top AI companies through a single API, with Mendix, a leading low-code platform in the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio.
“So one of the largest announcements we made is really this partnership between Siemens and Amazon Web Services to use their large language modeling AI engine called bedrock. And that allows you to actually naturally talk to the software and it automatically generates code,” added Discher.
“So think about the challenges of somebody on the factory floor who is actually trying to maybe find a quality problem and wants to report a quality issue, which doesn't really get reported because it's highly difficult for factory workers to talk technically and truly get it into back to back to the folks that are doing the product design,” explained Discher.
This collaboration aims to facilitate the development and scaling of AI applications across different sectors.
First collabs with NVIDIA
One of its first collaborations in the space of industrial metaverse came with NVIDIA in 2022, where the two tech behemoths teamed up to make a digital world for industries.
NVIDIA is known for its top-of-the-line graphic processors and artificial intelligence. They joined forces to create an industrial metaverse and use smart digital models to boost industrial automation.
“We envision the industrial metaverse as a virtual world that is nearly indistinguishable from reality, enabling people — along with AI — to collaborate in real-time to address real-world challenges,” said Roland Busch, Siemens CEO.
“This will empower customers to accelerate innovation, enhance sustainability, and adopt new technologies faster and at scale, leading to a profound transformation of entire industries and our everyday lives. Together with our customers and partners, Siemens is proud to announce new products that will bring the industrial metaverse a step closer to all of us,” added Busch.
Originally published on Interesting Engineering : Original article