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ABB, IBM announce machine learning partnership

Xinhua, April 25, 2017 Adjust font size:

Engineering company ABB will combine its ability to gather data from machinery with IBM's advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, the two companies jointly announced Tuesday.

The digital offering will integrate the cognitive analysis capability of the IBM Watson Internet of Things with ABB's automation technology ABB Ability, according to a press release circulated during the Hanover Messe which officially opened on Sunday.

This combination is planned to enable an automated evaluation of industrial processes, alerting manufacturers to faults and improving accuracy and consistency. IBM Watson can monitor the production images captured through an ABB system, and evaluate and optimize the process accordingly.

Another possible application for the collaboration of ABB and IBM is in the use in smart grids to determine optimal load management and real-time pricing, by predicting supply and demand patterns in electricity generation.

"The future offers many opportunities for us especially in terms of the energy transition," ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer told Xinhua. "Investments in renewable energies -- and their corresponding integration into the electricity grid -- of around 7 trillion U.S. dollars are expected in the next 25 years."

ABB is a globally operating, Switzerland-based, technology provider for electrification products, robotics and industrial automation, with 70 million connected devices, 70,000 digital control systems and 6,000 enterprise software solutions. Germany is among ABB's most important locations with 10,540 employees and annual revenues of 3.56 billion U.S. dollars in 2016.

IBM is one of the world's largest information technology companies, manufacturing and marketing computer hardware and software, operating in over 170 countries.

ABB aims to offer additional value to their customers in utilities, industry and infrastructure by combining ABB's digital solution expertise with IBM's artificial intelligence and machine learning. Spiesshofer said the collaboration will connect systems that collect data and also "use the data to sense, analyze, optimize and take actions," in what he called a "fourth industrial revolution."

The partnership will apply Watson's cognitive capacities to industrial processes. Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and CEO said "the data generated from industrial companies' products, facilities and systems holds the promise of exponential advances in innovation, efficiency and safety." Endit