Alibaba Cloud, a leading global cloud computing and artificial intelligence technology company, will integrate the Phoenix Contact Virtual PLCnext Control software solution as part of Alibaba Cloud’s manufacturing solutions, providing Alibaba Cloud’s cloud services and edge cloud infrastructure products to Phoenix Contact’s manufacturing customers in China and even Asia.

Phoenix Contact and Alibaba Cloud reached a cooperation agreement at the Nuremberg SPS Automation Expo, with Alibaba Cloud expanding its cloud computing solutions to the OT field. With the open industrial automation ecosystem PLCnext Technology launched by Phoenix Contact, users can use PLCnext Engineer for programming and access the PLCnext Store automation application store through the Virtual PLCnext Control software solution.

Virtual PLCnext Control

Thanks to the continuous development of virtualization technology, the increasing maturity of SoftPLC technology, and the continuous improvement of hardware performance, virtualized PLC is becoming the combination of the three, and Virtual PLCnext Control is thus born:

Core advantages

Virtual PLCnext Control can be flexibly deployed on various hardware platforms, including industrial PCs, edge devices, and Linux servers, reducing the cost of using PLCs for customers;

With the help of virtualization technology, Virtual PLCnext Control can achieve multi control for one machine, meeting the needs of flexible production and the flexibility of PLC deployment;

The combination of IT and OT provides users with a vast space for custom development. Virtual PLCnext Control provides a highly flexible and open system architecture that allows users to customize development at multiple levels.

Alibaba Cloud Edge Cloud Services

With the increasing demand for massive data generation, real-time processing efficiency, and industry digitization, more and more enterprises are facing challenges in market response speed, resource utilization efficiency, data security, and the IT transformation of traditional businesses.

Alibaba Cloud Edge Cloud pushes computing, storage, networking, and more intelligent services to the network edge closer to end-users and business scenarios. Through a global network of edge nodes, it provides users with lower latency, higher resource utilization, better security and privacy protection, more IT oriented and intelligent cloud services, ensuring the continuity and reliability of enterprise business and providing a soil for the growth of more industry innovation scenarios.

We are willing to work with customers and partners to open up new opportunities in the changing situation, provide new technologies, practices, and ideas for enterprise transformation and upgrading, and accelerate the leap of industrial intelligence!

Jim Chappell stated that various industries are undergoing strategic transformations to adapt to constantly evolving technologies and sustainable priorities by adopting AI systems that prioritize ethical considerations and human centeredness.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a norm in life over the past few years. Its application areas are very wide, from automatic email reply suggestions, helping optimize resumes, to improving the performance of industrial assets, supporting more intelligent decision-making, and even predicting the future through technologies such as neural networks, deep learning, and reinforcement learning.

By 2025, these application scenarios will be further expanded, and AI will drive strategic changes in industrial operations, becoming a direct partner for enterprise development, simplifying complex processes, and helping personnel at all levels obtain accurate insights when needed.

As a science, AI can be traced back to the 1950s. The rapid popularization of AI in recent years indicates that it will become an important driving force for future industrial growth.

In 2025, various fields of AI will continue to develop and achieve closer integration, while the entry threshold will also be lowered. Advanced analytical techniques will be fully applied in more links of the industrial value chain, providing end-to-end insights from production workshops to senior management through a more humane and conversational approach. This industrial intelligence will accelerate the realization of new paths for efficiency, profitability, and sustainable development. This trend will bring early investors in AI closer to Industry 5.0. In this era of collaboration, while respecting the production limits of the Earth, humanity and advanced technology will work together to achieve prosperity and development.

Business leaders realize the importance of introducing industrial AI, which can ensure operational flexibility, surpass competitors, and seize emerging opportunities. The latest AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index report shows that nearly three-quarters (71%) of executives indicate that investing in intelligence and insight is a priority for the next 12 months.

With the continuous development of science, we are seeing three major AI business trends gradually emerging.

1. Humanized AI makes industrial intelligence widely popularized

Although AI is typically designed for data teams and experts, this situation is rapidly changing. The development trend of natural language and voice interfaces will enable operators with almost no technical training to interact more closely with various types of AI.

As more and more non professional industrial workers use AI to better complete their work and solve problems in real time, without the need for professional training or even understanding the working principles of technology, productivity is expected to be improved. For example, new employees do not need to spend a lot of time on systematic training when using tools like industrial AI assistants, but can directly inquire about the required content and obtain answers. Humanized AI will promote the democratization of data-driven decision-making and fully unleash competitive advantages.

2.AI becomes the foundation for simplifying user experience

Think back on how much time we spent learning how to operate different software, understanding their menus, commands, and shortcuts. Through humanized interaction, AI will now be integrated as the “front-end” of industrial software systems. We will no longer need to open the dashboard and scroll through various data inputs, but can directly request the system to generate customized reports or design control interfaces for specific assets.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is already helping us draft emails and create presentations. As this trend spreads to the industrial sector, its business advantages are reflected in improving productivity, simplifying workflows, and shortening time to value, without the need for significant investment in retraining.

3. Applying AI to become the “main force” in the industrial field

AI is also becoming a more precise operational tool, surpassing the scope of simply improving efficiency. For example, with the addition of normative and predictive functions, predictive maintenance has now become mainstream and is constantly improving. In the future, we will utilize industrial AI tools to undertake more heavy workloads from data processing to real-time optimization of complex operations.

Gen AI will accelerate engineering progress by further automating routine tasks. For example, during the design process, Generative Design AI (GenDAI) will automatically create an optimized pipeline layout for the new factory, with the goal of minimizing the total length of the pipeline, reducing sharp bends to increase flow, and considering space constraints.

In addition, autonomous AI can now handle dynamic processes and respond to complex changes and disturbances in almost real-time under human supervision. With the help of reinforcement learning, AI supported systems can be optimized even in brief situations such as startup, shutdown, changes in input levels, and other unexpected interruptions.

Its value lies in three aspects: firstly, stable operation within seconds means minimal losses and significantly reduced downtime, thereby improving industrial resilience. Finally, as AI tools handle complex and time-consuming tasks, the time to value realization can be shortened.

How the development of industrial AI lays the foundation for Industry 5.0

AI continues to enhance our work experience, and the term ‘Industry 5.0’ will frequently appear. Industry 5.0 aims to enhance human expertise through AI driven insights, thereby unleashing new value more sustainably. We see that AI systems are emerging as dynamic partners, as intelligent agents capable of continuously learning from complex data streams and taking autonomous actions. This is an important step towards proxy artificial intelligence, which will ultimately bring us closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI), truly human like intelligence.

As existing technologies evolve towards Industry 5.0, the focus will shift towards responsible AI, which follows principles of safety, trustworthiness, and ethics to build AI applications. It is expected that a responsible AI framework will be introduced to ensure that AI decisions are fair, easy to understand, and accountable. These frameworks will use methods such as obtaining references to record input and output, while protecting data and maintaining user privacy. AI will increasingly assist in completing complex tasks such as process optimization and predictive analysis, but will always collaborate with humans, who have the ultimate decision-making power.

For enterprises that want to enhance adaptability and flexibility, this year is a transformative moment where AI will bridge the gap, reduce complexity, and help businesses prepare for the next stage of human-machine collaboration. We look forward to AI becoming a true business partner, helping industrial workers think, act, and stay ahead.

In early August 2024, Siemens released its Q3 2024 performance report. The report shows that the number of new orders has decreased by 15% year-on-year, especially in the automation field, where new orders have also decreased due to high customer inventory and complex market environments. In the face of this situation, what is even more unexpected is that after the release of this performance report, Siemens seems to have adopted a strategy of not releasing goods and creating market scarcity, attempting to drive up product prices. In just two days, some models of Siemens industrial control products such as PLCs have seen a price increase of over 13%.

This artificially created scarcity greatly increases market uncertainty. For the agent group, after realizing Siemens’ official intention, they judged that the market may usher in a wave of price increases, so they began to cautiously restock, and even did not rush to release inventory. This market behavior exacerbated the imbalance between supply and demand, and further promoted price increases. But this is still limited to speculation. The current dilemma is that agents are also under pressure when faced with one price in the morning and one price in the afternoon, and they cannot help but be more cautious when quoting to customers.

For many automation terminal enterprises that rely on Siemens products, it is even more passive, because unpredictable market intervention invisibly increases unplanned procurement costs and the delivery time of automation enterprise equipment and projects, making many related enterprises very passive and having to face the risks of rising costs and project delivery delays.

At the beginning of 2021, the profound impact of the overall shortage of industrial control products by foreign brands is still vivid in our memory. Today, we still need to be cautious in dealing with the possibility of foreign brands launching market intervention policies, which may bring market uncertainty and torture, which is truly distressing. In this context, the importance of domestic substitution and independent innovation is once again highlighted!

For many years, China’s industrial automation industry has relied on international brands such as Siemens, Mitsubishi, and ABB. However, with changes in the market environment and adjustments in international brand strategies, more and more domestic enterprises are beginning to understand and use domestic independent brands. After all, the high cost-effectiveness and localized high-quality services of domestic brands are still evident to all.

Domestic brands rooted in the automation industry have gradually realized that only through independent technological innovation, building a stable supply chain system, and improving service mechanisms can they have a say in the fierce and highly uncertain market competition, and provide stable, reliable, and sustainable products and services for domestic end brands downstream of the industry.

In the field of domestic industrial control, we are continuously committed to technological innovation, promoting industrial civilization, responding quickly to market demand, and providing more intelligent, accurate, and cutting-edge comprehensive products and solutions. We have now grown into a leading enterprise in domestic PLC.

On another path of focusing on domestic substitution of Siemens PLC, a group of excellent enterprises have also emerged. With nearly 20 years of technological accumulation and market experience, the UN series PLC products launched by them can perfectly replace Siemens imported PLC and become a new choice for many customers who previously used Siemens PLC.

On the one hand, domestic PLCs provide stable and reliable performance at a more affordable price, with outstanding cost-effectiveness, saving users a lot of costs. The long-term stable price also ensures the rights and interests of agents and users.

In addition to high cost-effectiveness and price stability, domestic brands that have been immersed in the industrial control industry for many years have established their own production bases and built stable and controllable supply chains to ensure product delivery quality and lead time.

At the same time, the fast response service team is also a significant advantage of domestic PLC compared to imported brands. The service team of domestic PLC has a wide coverage, fast response, and a deeper understanding of the local market, which can better meet the needs of users and provide more customized solutions.

Currently, facing the situation of rising prices and shortages of Siemens PLCs, choosing domestic alternatives is not only an effective means of cost control, but also an opportunity to promote independent innovation in China’s industry. Such domestic brands not only enable enterprises to gradually break away from their dependence on international brands, but also enhance the integrity and competitiveness of the local industrial chain, accelerate technological innovation and product upgrading, thereby achieving sustainable development of the industry and making the long-standing monopoly of foreign brands a thing of the past!

ABB Intelligent Power in China for 30 Years: Innovation and Digital Green Empowerment through Global and Local Collaboration Industrial control network

2024 marks the beginning of ABB Intelligent Power’s 30th entry into the Chinese market. Starting from the establishment of low-voltage electrical equipment production bases in Xiamen and Xinhui, ABB Intelligent Power has continuously deepened its strategy of “serving China in China”, promoting multi-dimensional development of local innovation, digital transformation, and green production. Under the trend of “dual carbon” policy and industrial transformation, the demand for intelligent power skills in China’s market is becoming increasingly urgent.

In interviews with media such as Industrial Control Network, Ma Si, Global President of ABB Intelligent Power, Shi Shijie, Regional Head of ABB Intelligent Power Asia, and Yang Rong, Sales Head of ABB Intelligent Power Construction and Intelligent Power Affairs in China, comprehensively discussed ABB Intelligent Power’s strategic layout and innovative practices in China from the perspectives of global perspective, regional collaboration, local innovation, and green production. This article will explore ABB Intelligent Power’s efforts to build a professional leading competitiveness in China from three aspects: localization innovation, digital empowerment, and green production.

30 Years of Localized Innovation and Rapid Response to Shopping Malls
During the event, Massimiliano Cifalitti, Global President of ABB Intelligent Power, first discussed the important position of China’s shopping malls in the global layout. He pointed out that China is not only a major producer and consumer of power, but also the second largest market for ABB in the world. In the past 10 years, ABB’s investment in China has exceeded 1 billion US dollars. The Xiamen and Xinhui bases in China not only undertake manufacturing functions, but also become an important part of ABB’s global research and development system, providing support for global innovation.

Ma Si emphasized the cross functional rapid response team established by ABB in China. “These teams have a high degree of decision-making autonomy in local markets and can flexibly adjust their strategies according to changes in the market.” This authorization mechanism ensures that ABB can quickly implement skills based on the needs of Chinese markets, which not only improves the localization level of products, but also significantly shortens the time to market for new products.

In the fields of electricity and automation, the rapid response team not only enhances the responsiveness of local shopping malls, but also provides multinational companies with an innovative localization strategy. We believe that as the demand for local shopping malls accelerates, this direct and localized decision-making form will play an important role in local innovation for future careers and provide useful reference for multinational enterprises to open up local shopping malls.

Shi Shijie, the regional leader of ABB Intelligent Power Asia, shared ABB’s addition strategy in Asia from the perspective of regional collaboration. Shi Shijie pointed out that benefiting from the rapid development of China’s shopping malls, ABB Intelligent Power has completed the addition of orders in multiple Asian countries, especially in the areas of data centers and renewable power.
Shi Shijie stated that “China’s skills and innovation in research and development have become key pillars of the entire Asian market. By radiating the research and development achievements and skills experience of our market to other countries, we have driven the increase of affairs in the entire Asian region.” He also pointed out that ABB’s collaboration in research and development with other Asian markets not only promotes ABB’s regional market expansion, but also further strengthens ABB’s skills and innovation ability in the Asian market.

In the trend of parallel globalization and localization, ABB’s regional collaboration strategy demonstrates how local shopping malls can become regional innovation engines. In the future, with the increasing demand for customized solutions in Chinese shopping malls, skill collaboration between regions will further accelerate the linkage of regional shopping malls, providing new ideas for multinational enterprises to enhance their competitiveness.

Multi dimensional layout of ABB digital empowerment and green production
Yang Rong, the person in charge of ABB Electric Intelligent Construction and Intelligent Power Affairs for the sale of shopping malls in China, focused on the power demand and digital transformation of shopping malls in China, and introduced ABB’s multi-level power assurance plan in the data center field. He pointed out that with the expansion of China’s data center scale, ABB Intelligent Power has invested a lot of resources in ensuring efficient and stable power supply.

Yang Rong mentioned that ABB’s Emax 2 Harness active transfer switch, UPS power assurance system, and PQF power quality products have been widely used in data centers in China. For example, ABB recently collaborated with a large bank to supply over 500 DC switch devices for its data center in Inner Mongolia, ensuring efficient and stable power supply and meeting the demand for modular planning of the data center.

With the accelerated development of digital economy such as the Internet of Things and big data, data centers have put forward higher requirements for the intelligence and efficiency of the power system. ABB’s power assurance plan demonstrates a useful combination of intelligence and stability, providing skill support for the construction of digital infrastructure in China. From the perspective of industrial control networks, with the rapid expansion of data centers, ABB’s practices in power assurance and energy efficiency optimization have set a benchmark for professionals.

In the field of intelligent manufacturing, Lin Heng, General Manager of ABB Xinhui Low Voltage Switchgear Co., Ltd., shared ABB’s AI applications in production and testing. He introduced, “The two major bases in Xinhui and Xiamen have introduced AI skills, especially in the production and testing processes, greatly improving efficiency and accuracy. For example, the visual inspection system actively recognizes switch nameplate information, effectively reducing human errors. At the same time, the introduction of machine learning skills has played an important role in power management and fault detection in intelligent production
In addition, Lin Heng also introduced ABB’s EcoSolutions green standards, which display product carbon footprint and recycling information through QR codes, allowing customers to have a clear understanding of the environmental attributes of ABB products. Lin Heng stated that ABB plans to mask 80% of its sales revenue from EcoSolutions products and solutions by 2030, further demonstrating ABB’s long-term commitment to sustainable development.

In the field of industrial production, achieving green and intelligent production often comes with complex skill challenges. Through intelligent algorithms and machine learning skills, ABB has not only improved product inspection efficiency, but also optimized power management, bringing considerable energy-saving effects. Under the global trend of promoting green and low-carbon, ABB’s green production form will provide a good demonstration for professional green transformation and play a positive role in achieving China’s “dual carbon” policy.

After 30 years of deep cultivation in the Chinese market, ABB Intelligent Power has set a professional benchmark in localization innovation, digital empowerment, and green production. ABB’s Global President of Intelligent Power, Mas, stated that “serving our country in our country” is not only ABB’s promise to the Chinese market, but also the core path for the company to achieve innovation and sustainable development. ABB empowers cross functional teams to quickly respond to customer needs, promote AI and other skills to enhance intelligent production capabilities, and promise sustainable development through EcoSolutions standards and green factory construction.

It can be seen that ABB Intelligent Power’s multi-level innovation in China demonstrates three major trends for future careers: localization empowerment, intelligent upgrading, and green production. With the increasing demand for efficient, intelligent, and green development in our country’s shopping malls, ABB’s innovative practices not only contribute to its own development, but also provide forward-looking directions for the profession.

Three major trends of artificial intelligence empowering the industrial sector in 2025

By adopting AI systems with ethical considerations and a people-oriented approach, various industries are undergoing strategic transformations to adapt to constantly evolving technologies and sustainable priorities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a norm in life over the past few years. Its application areas are very wide, from automatic email reply suggestions, helping optimize resumes, to improving the performance of industrial assets, supporting more intelligent decision-making, and even predicting the future through technologies such as neural networks, deep learning, and reinforcement learning.

By 2025, these application scenarios will be further expanded, and AI will drive strategic changes in industrial operations, becoming a direct partner for enterprise development, simplifying complex processes, and helping personnel at all levels obtain accurate insights when needed.

As a science, AI can be traced back to the 1950s. The rapid popularization of AI in recent years indicates that it will become an important driving force for future industrial growth.

In 2025, various fields of AI will continue to develop and achieve closer integration, while the entry threshold will also be lowered. Advanced analytical techniques will be fully applied in more links of the industrial value chain, providing end-to-end insights from production workshops to senior management through a more humane and conversational approach. This industrial intelligence will accelerate the realization of new paths for efficiency, profitability, and sustainable development. This trend will bring early investors in AI closer to Industry 5.0. In this era of collaboration, while respecting the production limits of the Earth, humanity and advanced technology will work together to achieve prosperity and development.

Business leaders realize the importance of introducing industrial AI, which can ensure operational flexibility, surpass competitors, and seize emerging opportunities. The latest AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index report shows that nearly three-quarters (71%) of executives indicate that investing in intelligence and insight is a priority for the next 12 months.

With the continuous development of science, we are seeing three major AI business trends gradually emerging.

1. Humanized AI makes industrial intelligence widely popularized

Although AI is typically designed for data teams and experts, this situation is rapidly changing. The development trend of natural language and voice interfaces will enable operators with almost no technical training to interact more closely with various types of AI.

As more and more non professional industrial workers use AI to better complete their work and solve problems in real time, without the need for professional training or even understanding the working principles of technology, productivity is expected to be improved. For example, new employees do not need to spend a lot of time on systematic training when using tools like industrial AI assistants, but can directly inquire about the required content and obtain answers. Humanized AI will promote the democratization of data-driven decision-making and fully unleash competitive advantages.

2.AI becomes the foundation for simplifying user experience

Think back on how much time we spent learning how to operate different software, understanding their menus, commands, and shortcuts. Through humanized interaction, AI will now be integrated as the “front-end” of industrial software systems. We will no longer need to open the dashboard and scroll through various data inputs, but can directly request the system to generate customized reports or design control interfaces for specific assets.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is already helping us draft emails and create presentations. As this trend spreads to the industrial sector, its business advantages are reflected in improving productivity, simplifying workflows, and shortening time to value, without the need for significant investment in retraining.

3. Applying AI to become the “main force” in the industrial field

AI is also becoming a more precise operational tool, surpassing the scope of simply improving efficiency. For example, with the addition of normative and predictive functions, predictive maintenance has now become mainstream and is constantly improving. In the future, we will utilize industrial AI tools to undertake more heavy workloads from data processing to real-time optimization of complex operations.

Gen AI will accelerate engineering progress by further automating routine tasks. For example, during the design process, Generative Design AI (GenDAI) will automatically create an optimized pipeline layout for the new factory, with the goal of minimizing the total length of the pipeline, reducing sharp bends to increase flow, and considering space constraints.

In addition, autonomous AI can now handle dynamic processes and respond to complex changes and disturbances in almost real-time under human supervision. With the help of reinforcement learning, AI supported systems can be optimized even in brief situations such as startup, shutdown, changes in input levels, and other unexpected interruptions.

Its value lies in three aspects: firstly, stable operation within seconds means minimal losses and significantly reduced downtime, thereby improving industrial resilience. Finally, as AI tools handle complex and time-consuming tasks, the time to value realization can be shortened.

How the development of industrial AI lays the foundation for Industry 5.0

AI continues to enhance our work experience, and the term ‘Industry 5.0’ will frequently appear. Industry 5.0 aims to enhance human expertise through AI driven insights, thereby unleashing new value more sustainably. We see that AI systems are emerging as dynamic partners, as intelligent agents capable of continuously learning from complex data streams and taking autonomous actions. This is an important step towards proxy artificial intelligence, which will ultimately bring us closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI), truly human like intelligence.

As existing technologies evolve towards Industry 5.0, the focus will shift towards responsible AI, which follows principles of safety, trustworthiness, and ethics to build AI applications. It is expected that a responsible AI framework will be introduced to ensure that AI decisions are fair, easy to understand, and accountable. These frameworks will use methods such as obtaining references to record input and output, while protecting data and maintaining user privacy. AI will increasingly assist in completing complex tasks such as process optimization and predictive analysis, but will always collaborate with humans, who have the ultimate decision-making power.

For enterprises that want to enhance adaptability and flexibility, this year is a transformative moment where AI will bridge the gap, reduce complexity, and help businesses prepare for the next stage of human-machine collaboration. We look forward to AI becoming a true business partner, helping industrial workers think, act, and stay ahead.

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