Rockwell Automation to Increase Scale and Scope of AI in Manufacturing with NVIDIA
March 27, 2024
Collaboration will help automation customers create factories of the future
Rockwell Automation. one of the world’s largest companies dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, has announced it is collaborating with NVIDIA to accelerate a next-generation industrial architecture.
Manufacturing is a $15-trillion global industry that touches everything humans need to survive and thrive—from clean water to food, life-saving drugs and therapies, sustainable energy, mobility, and more. The company plans to evolve the industry by creating the factory of the future, making it easier for automation customers to digitalize industrial processes. Factories of the future will be characterized by enhanced sensing capabilities with machine vision, accelerated compute capability in control systems, advanced simulations equipped with learning agents, widespread adoption of autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), and generative AI (GenAI) experiences to enhance information retrieval for frontline operators.
“Our work with NVIDIA is poised to help accelerate the future of industrial operations and create value across our portfolio of software, hardware, and services—from the cloud to the factory floor,” said Jordan Reynolds, vice president, Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy, Rockwell Automation.
The company will further integrate NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud application programming interfaces (APIs) with Emulate3D by Rockwell Automation, bringing users data interoperability, live collaboration, and physically based visualization for designing, building, and operating industrial-scale digital twins of production systems.
“The demand for the accelerated computing needed to create, simulate, and operate large-scale digital twins is rising,” said Rev Lebaredian, vice president, Omniverse and Simulation Technology, NVIDIA. “Rockwell will integrate NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud APIs with its Emulate3D digital twin application to help make factory analysis, including operations and simulation, easier and more predictive than ever.”
The lack of labor force and a need for more efficiency are driving huge demand for intelligent automation and robotics in manufacturing and logistics. By developing on the NVIDIA robotics platform for edge AI, Rockwell is helping to bring AMRs—through its recent acquisition of OTTO Motors—and process automation applications to industrial customers.
A recent survey from Rockwell Automation shows AI ranks as the top feature that manufacturers believe will drive the biggest business outcomes. In fact, 83 percent of manufacturers expect to use GenAI in their operations in 2024. As part of this collaboration, NVIDIA is now an official member of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork™, meaning Rockwell customers can use NVIDIA applications to help make their operations more resilient, agile, and sustainable.
Rockwell technology was showcased in a collaboration with NVIDIA and Microsoft at NVIDIA GTC, a global AI conference running March 18-21, 2024, in San Jose, California.
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