United States Steel and Carnegie Foundry, a robotics and AI studio, jointly announced a strategic investment and partnership. The two Pittsburgh-based companies will work to accelerate and scale industrial automation driven by advanced robotics and artificial intelligence (AI). Carnegie Foundry will use this investment to commercialize and scale its industrial automation portfolio of robotics and AI technologies in advanced manufacturing, industrial robotics, integrated systems, autonomous mobility, voice analytics and more.

The fourth industrial revolution – the revolution that ushered in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Services (IoS) – has come to be known as Industry 4.0. The initial goals of Industry 4.0 typically have been automation, manufacturing process improvement and productivity/production optimization. The more advanced goals are innovation and the transition to new business models and revenue sources using information technologies and services as cornerstones.

Companies are trying to establish the new normal for working environments –
whether that involves work-from-home employees, creating safe work spaces on the shop floor or business interactions through voice and video conferencing.

Microsoft and Tenova, a Techint Group company, renewed their collaboration with the aim of guiding companies in the metals industry on their digital transformation journeys. Leveraging on the Microsoft Azure platform and Tenova’s solutions for the steel industry, the two companies intend to lead the digital transformation of the sector. The goal of this renewed partnership is to provide Italian companies in the metals industry with industrial solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI) in order to give value to the large amount of data coming from industrial plants.

Semiotic Labs, a company based in Leiden, Netherlands, and Germany’s SMS group signed an agreement under which the two companies will cooperate in the field of predictive maintenance. The AI-based technology developed by Semiotic Labs uses electrical signals and the data fingerprint of AC motors and other rotating equipment to monitor and analyze the condition of critical plant assets and enable reliable and early prediction of developing faults. SAM4 operates based on sensors installed directly in the control cabinet – not on the asset itself. This solution is particularly useful for the monitoring of equipment in the metallurgical industry.

Noodle.ai and SMS group announced a partnership to further optimize the world’s first learning steel mill for Arkansas-based Big River Steel. The joint solution was created by implementing Noodle.ai’s learning algorithms into SMS group’s X-Pact MES 4.0. Noodle.ai was able to leverage the existing integration of SMS group’s X-Pact MES 4.0 in the steel mill‘s IT environment and in their SaaS (Software as a Service) applications. The new end solutions digitize applications throughout every stage of the steelmaking process, from the liquid phase all the way to strip finishing.

IoT in combination with digital twins, AI-powered service organizations and equipping users to service their own assets are key trends impacting the service industry, predicts Mark Brewer, IFS global industry director for service management.

When someone uses the term “Artificial Intelligence,” the image evoked in most people’s minds is more like The Terminator than a real-world computer program. Our culture has heavily fictionalized artificial intelligence (AI), to the point that most people don’t consider it a reality. However, Artificial Super Intelligence may not be too far out of reach.

How might today’s speeding technologies impact our businesses?