How 'industrial intelligence' is shaping the information ecosystems of the future

The industry leaders I meet on my travels share three overwhelming concerns: how to maximize uptime to deliver life’s essentials most efficiently, how to decarbonize and meet their regulatory requirements, and how to support their workforce through the demographic changes affecting the globe, from the retirement of the boomer generation to younger generations’ new expectations of work.

In addition, climate change is accelerating. This year, we face the sobering reality that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C threshold is likely to slip out of reach, even if we have passed peak oil.

In this context, the imperative for industrial transformation has never been starker. Digitalization and electrification are catalysts for greater agility, resilience and competitiveness. But we have learned that success in today’s environment is about more than connecting technologies and data – it’s about breaking down barriers of thought and culture, enabling teams, communities and even competitors to share insights across organizational, commercial and geographic divides.

From my perspective, this new model, powered by what we at AVEVA call industrial intelligence, is opening avenues for change that were not possible even five years ago.

What does this industrial intelligence look like in practice? Consider Elkem in Norway, producing environmentally responsible silicon. At its Bremanger plant, it unified 19 different systems across 11 control rooms into a single-pane-of-glass view of its entire ecosystem. This broke down traditional barriers, enabling Elkem's teams to optimize performance, reduce downtime and cut carbon emissions. Elkem's success proves a crucial point: where data flows freely, sustainable innovation can follow.

But achieving this level of integration requires a fundamental shift in organizational culture and digital applications to empower people to transcend silos and solve higher-order problems – what you could call 'connected thinking.'

What made this possible was the emergence of industrial intelligence platforms that can unify disparate data from engineering, operations, and even AI. By creating a single, secure, agnostic environment where organizations can aggregate and contextualize data across boundaries and upload that data to the cloud, organizations benefit from an intelligent digital twin with connected insights that drive more efficient decision-making. Industry transformation increasingly means that all members of the ecosystem – be they a plant floor worker, an executive or even a partner or customer – can tap into data-driven insights to optimize their part of the value chain.

Industry leaders are demonstrating how this kind of connected intelligence accelerates sustainability at scale. Power company EDF Energy has pioneered this approach in its next-generation nuclear plants. By creating a unified 3D environment where engineering teams collaborate in real-time, it has significantly reduced engineering hours while extending plant lifespans and improving its carbon footprint and emissions profile.

This approach also supports the transfer of knowledge from one team to another and captures the insights of workers transitioning off each project or even retiring, as everything is represented in an intelligent digital twin. In this way, EDF boosted the reliability of its energy supply by 20%, safeguarding supplies to its customers worldwide. Additionally, reducing engineering hours through digital collaboration drives down operational costs, supporting affordable energy.

Chemical manufacturing—one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize—offers a further compelling example. Covestro, a leader in high-tech plastics, discovered that connecting process simulation with real-time operational data could transform its team’s sustainability performance. Previously unable to measure critical metrics like product purity and energy demand, it combined data on raw materials and plant performance, resulting in a 20% reduction in maintenance effort, standardized operations, and significantly improved process efficiency, enabling measurable cuts of up to 10% in emissions.

We are also seeing the emergence of pioneering new paradigms. PCMC Smart City in India built an integrated command and control centre that draws together data from eight primary operational systems – from water and power to public transportation and schooling. This digital nervous system now serves as the city's infrastructural backbone, resulting in lower emissions of up to 25% and reduced water leakage of 22%. It also supports the provision of higher-quality public health services supported by digital models. PCMC, for example, was the first city in India to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine by enabling the distribution of vaccine e-vouchers to citizens at smart hubs throughout the city. This model of integrated urban management is now serving as a blueprint for India's ambitious 100 Smart Cities Mission, showing how a connected information ecosystem can accelerate sustainable transformation across regions.

At this nexus of cultural change and digital thinking, broader transformation is underway. Three forces are accelerating this shift towards industrial intelligence:

● First, economic pressures are driving new approaches to operational resilience, with traditional linear supply chains giving way to connected ecosystems.

● Second, the evolution of digital-first public infrastructure, enriched with AI, is transforming how industries and communities can collaborate and make decisions in highly complex multi-stakeholder settings.

● Third, underpinning all these innovations is a more connected, global mindset founded on digitally enabled ecosystems for commerce and knowledge sharing. These connected networks do not just enable functional efficiency, but also a step change in measurement, transparency and decision-making. This, in turn, fuels the insights that teams and executives need to address the big challenges confronting industry.

The democratization of industrial intelligence is not just an opportunity – it's a shared mission to achieve our decarbonization goals and ensure the responsible delivery of life's essentials.

In the year ahead, I anticipate a significant increase in how industrial leaders leverage more connected thinking, new economic models, and boundary-breaking collaborations to grow their businesses and accelerate their response to our planet's challenges.