CNME Editor Mark Forker was in attendance at Industrial X Unleashed, an inaugural event hosted by IFS, which kicked off earlier this morning in New York City. IFS CEO Mark Moffat announced several key new partnerships, which included a ‘world-first’ collaboration with Anthropic.
Moffat declared that IFS was leading a new movement called Industrial AI Applied.
He also highlighted the critical need for AI to operate in context, and he said that in the current climate there is far too much AI out there without any context.
“Today, we’re setting a new course. Industrial AI Applied, but what does that mean? It means we’re moving from demos, brochures and marketing into as my son would call it IRL (in real-life) – AI that can orchestrate physical operations and supply chains in real-time. AI that can unleash a new 10x capacity for workforce perspective with their performance. However, more important than anything that operates in context, and operates with the knowledge of industry. There is so much AI that we see today, that doesn’t operate in context. PhD level math and intelligence means nothing, unless it is applied into practical day-to-day operations,” said Moffat.
Moffat referenced the investment cycle in AI, which has led to some analysts to predict that AI is a bubble, that could burst at any stage.
As a chartered accountant by trade, Moffat likes to crunch numbers and he provided those in attendance with an overview when it comes to spending and investment in AI on a global scale.
“There are trillions of dollars flowing into this industry, and I spent some time trying to have a look at the numbers in play, and here’s my synthesis. $10 trillion is already been committed annually to rebuild the industrial world, that’s new plants, transmissions, supply chains and grids. There has been $7 trillion committed over the next 5 years to the build out of datacentres, and everything that goes with it. It is a huge amount of unfathomable money, and the thing that I learned last week, which is obvious to me, but I hadn’t really thought about it before is that this level of investment going in and these chip going in only have a lifecycle of 3-5 years, so this is juts going to keep going,” said Moffat.
Moffat stated that other than IFS, nobody in the market is building the control and the intelligence layers that are going to be required.
“We’re focused on the practical application of this technology and bringing it into IRL, and that’s what IFS does. We have walked this road many times in the past with our customers, and we have decades of operational data, and we’ve been focused on our 6 core industries throughout our entire history. We understand the depth, issues, and the requirements of management teams and we know the workforces unbelievably intimately, which gives us the ability to translate all of this innovation into real-life,” said Moffat.
Moffat acknowledge that IFS is acutely aware of the fact, that given the industries their customers operate in, there is no room for error, they simply have to get it right.
“We know how the physical world works, and today, we’re flipping the switch. This is all about acknowledging the hard truths too. This stuff that we’re talking about is really hard, taking legacy application environments and legacy infrastructure and moving it to a hard digital modern AI native world is difficult. The industries and the customers that we support run mission-critical operations, and there’s no room for error, we have got to get it right, we can’t get it wrong. Otherwise supply chains grind to a halt, aircraft is grounded, and ultimately there is risk to life,” said Moffat.
Moffat announced a series of mega new partnerships that he believes can create a whole set of new capabilities in mission-critical operations.
He described the new partnership between IFS and Anthropic as a world-first.
“We have decades of building the muscle in asset-intensive and capital-intensive industries. However, no single company can do this by itself, and we recognise that, and that’s why we’re working with some of the best organisations on the planet, who are moving at the speed of technology. We can’t do it ourselves and that’s why we’re announcing a series of new partnership with the hottest brands. The first of the partnerships that we’re announcing today is a world-first. IFS is announcing a new partnership with Anthropic. This strategic partnership is all about bringing the phenomenal capabilities of Claude and Anthropic into the industrial world. Anthropic are phenomenal in the enterprise, and they are mindful of the massive opportunity that comes with AI, but also the risks, because remember when it comes to mission-critical operations it’s so important that we get it right. We’re so excited about it, but it’s not reselling Claude, or white labelling it, this is fundamentally about creating new capability and putting it into the hands of the workforces that we serve,” said Moffat.
Moffat also announced new game-changing partnerships with Siemens, Boston Dynamics and JIVA.
Moffat concluded a superbly engaging and energetic keynote, by reinforcing their commitment to ensuring that they turn these partnerships into something tangible and real for their customers.
“These new partnerships are Industrial X, that is what the X is all about, doing this together. It’s an alliance of progress and possibility. The objective now for us is to make it real and turn these partnerships into outcomes for our mission-critical customers. There are three principles that I think underpin our approach. The first is building with you. We love helping our customers to be amazing, personally I make sure that I spend over 50% of my time with customers. It is also important for us to think about how we can embed this technology directly into workflows. Ultimately, Applied AI is different, it is in context. It is built for people doing the actual work on the ground, running a line, inspecting a sub-station and keeping people safe. Applied AI requires what we constantly refer to as first principle thinking,” said Moffat.