Siemens launches flagship business platform to accelerate digital transformation

July 02, 2022 | 12:50
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On June 29, global tech giant Siemens AG announced the launch of an open digital business platform, the Siemens Xcelerator, to accelerate digital transformation and value creation for customers of all sizes in industry, buildings, grids, and mobility.

The business platform makes the digital transformation easier, faster, and more scalable.

Siemens Xcelerator includes a curated portfolio of IoT-enabled hardware, software, and digital services of Siemens and certified third parties; a growing ecosystem of partners; and an evolving marketplace to facilitate interactions and transactions between customers, partners, and developers.

“Siemens Xcelerator will make it easier than ever before for companies to navigate digital transformation – faster and at scale. By combining the real and the digital worlds across operational and information technology, we empower customers and partners to boost productivity, competitiveness, and scale-up innovations,” said Roland Busch, president and CEO of Siemens AG.

"Our portfolio is transformed towards more open applications, with more cloud-based and as-a-service solutions and IoT-enabled hardware that can be constantly upgraded. At the same time, the collaboration will reach a new level with a growing ecosystem of partners,” he added.

“The fresh launch of Siemens Xcelerator, this week’s acquisition of Brightly Software and our expanded partnership with NVIDIA are major milestones in implementing our strategy to accelerate high-value growth,” Busch concluded.

The open digital business platform creates value for participants by facilitating interactions and fostering innovation between multiple parties – customers, partners, developers, and more.

Siemens launches flagship business platform to accelerate digital transformation

With the launch of Siemens Xcelerator, Siemens will transform its entire portfolio of hardware and software to become modular, cloud-connected and built on standard APIs.

The highest standards and value for all parties will be ensured by strong technical and commercial governance principles. Siemens and third-party offerings will adhere to the design principles of interoperability, flexibility, openness, and as-a-service.

On June 29, Siemens also announced the first new SaaS offering as part of Siemens Xcelerator. Building X is a new smart building suite to create a single source of truth that takes the complexity out of digitalisation and supports customers to achieve their net zero goals.

It is an end-to-end data and analytics suite breaking down data silos across domains such as energy management, security, and building maintenance. Building X is a modular, fully cloud-based open software suite, with AI-enabled applications, strong connectivity, and built-in cybersecurity.

On June 27, Siemens announced the agreement to purchase Brightly Software, a leading US-based asset and maintenance management software company. The acquisition will add Brightly‘s well-established capabilities across key sectors to Siemens’ digital and software know-how in buildings. It will be a core element of the Siemens Xcelerator for Buildings portfolio.

Partnership with NVIDIA for immersive digital twins

Siemens commits to joining forces and growing a strong partner ecosystem, building on existing strategic partnerships including with Accenture, Atos, AWS, Bentley, Microsoft and SAP. The intention is to expand the partner ecosystem with diverse companies.

The first major partnership agreement under the Siemens Xcelerator umbrella is with NVIDIA. On June 29, the two companies announced an expansion of their partnership to enable the industrial metaverse and increase the use of AI-driven digital twin technology that will help bring industrial automation to a new level.

As the first step in this collaboration, the companies plan to connect Siemens Xcelerator and the NVIDIA Omniverse, a platform for 3D design and collaboration. This will enable an industrial metaverse with physics-based digital models from Siemens and AI-enabled, physically accurate, real-time simulation from NVIDIA where companies make decisions faster and with increased confidence.

Confirmation of digital growth strategy and goals

The launch of the Siemens Xcelerator platform is the next step in Siemens’ digital strategy.

As part of the launch, Siemens confirms its growth targets for digital business announced at the last year’s capital market day, of a compound annual growth rate of around 10 per cent over the business cycle.

Digital revenue in the fiscal year 2021 stood at $5.84 billion. The launch of the business platform is also consistent with its move towards as-a-service offerings and will bolster the aim of increasing annual recurring revenue.

By Dinh Thuy

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