Siemens is battling Big Tech for AI supremacy at factories

IN A new Siemens factory that makes large switchboards for data centres in Fort Worth, Texas, artificial intelligence (AI) is doing a lot of work.

The demand for switchboards is surging as companies build out AI foundation models that power this new technology, but Siemens wants to do more than supply widgets for AI; the German manufacturer also wants to provide AI infrastructure. The Munich-based company announced earlier this year that it would build its own foundation model that’s focused on industry.

This pits Siemens against companies spending billions on AI, such as Alphabet’s Google and Nvidia, which are betting their massive models can be finetuned to specialise in automation and industrial applications. Although the capabilities are underpinned by the big model, the finetuning cuts out the clutter, bad information or hallucinations to make the models safe and efficient for industrial use.