Rockwell Automation and Microsoft Expand Partnership to Drive Industrial Transformation

Rockwell and Microsoft integrate AI and cloud solutions to boost manufacturing efficiency, innovation, and scalability.

Rockwell Automation and Microsoft are deepening their strategic collaboration to advance industrial transformation. This partnership aims to provide manufacturing customers with cutting-edge cloud and AI solutions that offer data insights, streamline operations, and enhance scalability.

Bridging Traditional and Digital Practices

The collaboration leverages Rockwell’s industrial automation expertise and Microsoft’s cloud and AI capabilities to bridge the gap between traditional industrial practices and modern digital applications. This integrated approach is designed to unlock the full potential of industrial data, creating solutions that drive efficiency and innovation.

Jessica Korpela, director of global customer innovation at Rockwell Automation, stated, “We are excited to strengthen our partnership with Microsoft as we work to meet the evolving challenges faced by today’s manufacturers. This enhanced collaboration fuses cloud and AI technologies with our extensive expertise in industrial automation, enabling our customers to reach unprecedented levels of efficiency, innovation, and resilience in their operations.”

New Solutions and Innovations

At the Automation Fair, Microsoft will introduce Azure IoT Operations, which integrates with Rockwell’s digital offerings, including FactoryTalk Optix. This combined solution allows manufacturers to capture critical insights from existing sites without extensive retrofitting, simplifying the integration of shop-floor data with cloud-based applications.

Rockwell has also expanded its FactoryTalk Design Studio software-as-a-service with a new Generative AI Copilot, developed in partnership with Microsoft. Powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, this feature enables engineers to use natural language prompts for tasks such as product guidance, code generation, troubleshooting, and code explanations. FactoryTalk Design Studio, accessible through a web browser, provides a collaborative, multi-user environment with integrated version control, continuously updated to enhance productivity and efficiency in industrial automation system design.

AI-Driven Manufacturing Solutions

The collaboration will introduce Rockwell’s FT Optix Food & Beverage model into the Microsoft AI model catalogue. This model, leveraging Microsoft’s Phi-3 small language models (SLM), provides machine operators with AI-guided instructions via the FactoryTalk Optix interface. These specifically trained models offer contextualized AI guidance to enhance productivity, reduce errors, and accelerate decision-making.

This partnership between Rockwell Automation and Microsoft represents a significant step forward in the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector. By integrating advanced cloud and AI solutions, the collaboration sets a new standard for connected, AI-driven operations, empowering companies to thrive in a rapidly changing industrial landscape. The introduction of AI-guided instructions and generative AI capabilities will likely drive substantial improvements in efficiency and innovation across the industry.

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