Siemens, a provider of industrial automation and systems integration solutions, announced a partnership with Microsoft to help manufacturers improve the efficiency across the design, engineering, manufacturing, and operational lifecycle of products. 

The companies will integrate Microsoft Azure’s machine learning with Siemens’ Industrial Edge to analyze images captured by cameras and videos to offer preventive maintenance solutions. 

Siemens’ digital industries software is offered through the Xcelerator, an integrated portfolio of software, services, and applications, with the aim of achieving synchronization between manufacturing, engineering, and service operations. The portfolio helps companies leverage digital twin technologies, enabling innovation through insights and automation solutions.

Analyst QuickTake : Siemens and Microsoft have collaborated on various projects previously. One of these collaborations is Senseye (a predictive maintenance company that Siemens acquired in June last year) on Azure, which allows companies to implement predictive maintenance at an enterprise level. On a separate note, generative AI is now seen to be used in industrial applications; for example, SparkCognition also announced the launch of a generative AI platform targeting the industrial sector last month.