by Gary Mintchell | Jun 18, 2026 | Edge, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
Rockwell Automation ’s software group has undergone substantial change over the past few years. It seems to have settled into a groove lately. I’d imagine that its story at this year’s Automation Fair in November in Boston should be interesting.
The TL;DR of today’s announcement—New product offers a unified execution architecture, bringing intelligence, resilience and enterprise scalability to modern manufacturing operations
Rockwell Automation announced June 18, 2026 the availability of FactoryTalk ResilientEdge, a next-generation execution architecture designed to support autonomous manufacturing operations across highly-automated environments.
Built on FactoryTalk Optix and integrated across Rockwell Automation’s portfolio, including Plex Manufacturing Execution System (MES), FactoryTalk ResilientEdge creates a single execution layer that spans machines, people and production systems. The platform delivers predictable, low-latency execution at the edge along with cloud capabilities that enable analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) training and enterprise orchestration. The combination of edge and cloud means that operations are continuous even if connectivity is lost.
The edge-to-cloud interaction comprises the bulk of such announcements lately. Connection points, of course, constitute the key interface for real action.
FactoryTalk ResilientEdge turns advanced manufacturing capabilities into a standard operating infrastructure by unifying plant models, connectivity, execution and intelligence into a single framework. Within FactoryTalk ResilientEdge, users will find a variety of innovative features: shared production model, native and interoperable connectivity, real-time edge execution with embedded business logic, cloud-scale analytics, and AI. The result is an execution system that eliminates the divide between Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT), dramatically reducing the complexity of deploying and evolving modern manufacturing operations.
“At a time when 95% of manufacturers are advancing AI and machine learning initiatives, FactoryTalk ResilientEdge enables a new class of manufacturing execution,” said Anthony Murphy, vice president of product management, Rockwell Automation. “Manufacturers can scale automation, intelligence, and autonomy across their operations while preserving the economic and scalability advantages of the cloud, helping manufacturers deploy faster and lower their total cost of ownership.”
Three key points
- Enabling AI-Driven Autonomy—Modern automation initiatives require reliable execution, structured data flow and scalable architecture as the foundation for advanced analytics and AI initiatives. FactoryTalk ResilientEdge delivers a resilient execution layer that supports advanced analytics, AI and closed-loop optimization without compromising plant-level performance.
- Secure, Interoperable and Built to Scale—FactoryTalk ResilientEdge helps manufacturers modernize operations by improving operational resiliency, optimized for Rockwell Automation ecosystems while remaining open and interoperable across heterogeneous production environments. The security, interoperability and scalability of the new offering is a testament to Rockwell’s elastic MES solutions.
- Faster Deployment and Lower Lifecycle Cost—By reducing integration complexity, centralizing monitoring and supporting modular scalability, FactoryTalk ResilientEdge can lower lifecycle costs and accelerate deployment. FactoryTalk ResilientEdge capabilities can be deployed as needed, supporting companies who phase their modernization strategy.
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by Gary Mintchell | Jun 9, 2026 | Data Management, Edge
When the three people I knew formed HighByte in the Industrial DataOps market, I thought they had a good thing going. Perhaps revenues have not rocketed as much as hoped, but they keep moving. They added work in unified data namespace. This partnership just announced with Siemens is a good deal for both companies.
In short:
- Partnership delivers unified data infrastructure for industrial operations, combining Siemens Industrial Edge, HighByte Intelligence Hub and Intelligence Center X
- Customers can seamlessly connect, contextualize and consume industrial data to build AI models, agents and applications at scale
- HighByte Intelligence Hub now available on Siemens Industrial Edge Marketplace
Siemens is expanding the capabilities of its Industrial Edge ecosystem through a partnership with industrial software company HighByte. The collaboration enables customers to seamlessly connect, contextualize and transform data from both operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) sources, helping them to get value from industrial data.
HighByte Intelligence Hub is an industrial data operations software solution, designed specifically for data modeling, orchestration and governance. It is now available as an official application on the Siemens Industrial Edge Marketplace. Customers can efficiently consume and reuse industrial data sets from HighByte to build AI models, agents and applications at scale, using Siemens’ recently announced Intelligence Center X software.
HighByte Intelligence Hub runs natively on Industrial Edge, where application and configuration management is handled. The solution integrates directly with the Industrial Edge’s Connectivity Suite, enabling users to connect to a wide variety of OT data sources including PLCs, SCADA systems, and industrial protocols. HighByte’s DataOps functionalities extend this connectivity to IT data sources, creating a unified data infrastructure that spans the entire production operation.
A key capability of the integrated solution is data contextualization and pipelining. Using HighByte Intelligence Hub, users can apply flexible and scalable transformation rules to process data from multiple sources across IT and OT domains, adding business context and converting raw operational data into meaningful information. These contextualized datasets can then be made available to IT services in a transparent and scalable manner, with HighByte serving as a true Unified Namespace provider that standardizes data access across the organization. Beyond making OT data available to IT systems, HighByte Intelligence Hub can also be used to adjust machine setpoints in a secure and reliable way, by sending commands from IT data sources – such as manufacturing execution systems (MES) – back to PLCs via Industrial Edge’s Connectivity Suite.
by Gary Mintchell | May 12, 2026 | Automation, Edge, Generative AI
Immediately following my trip to a software conference featuring AI solutions, I attended an online press conference from Siemens at Hannover Fair. I’ve attended it in person several times over the years. This year Siemens held the press conference (with fewer than usual journalists) at their stand instead of a great hall that featured dinner following.
Siemens featured AI and agents introducing us to Eigen. They are tied to Microsoft Copilot for their solutions. I was more impressed by the Aras deep dives into governance than Siemens’ ignoring of that topic.
There were many announcements.
Industrial AI Suite and WinCC Unified now with general availability
- Enhanced cybersecurity: IEC 62443-4-2-certified security functions and air-gapped operation for critical infrastructures
- Industrial Information Hub with bidirectional data flow and ARM support for flexible, decentralized applications
- Growing partner ecosystem: New partner solutions for machine vision, quality inspection and robust industrial hardware
The Industrial AI Suite, based on Industrial Edge, is now generally available. It simplifies the entire AI lifecycle and enables embedding industrial AI via a complete infrastructure, easily scaling AI models and managing them across locations. The Industrial AI Suite supports a wide range of AI-based applications such as predictive maintenance and visual inspection to reduce downtime and sustainably increase production quality. In the latest version, the Industrial AI Suite also enables significantly more effective AI model retraining by allowing customers to combine image data with production data from MES systems or controllers.
Industrial Edge Management version 2.0 combines a redesigned, more user friendly and efficient user interface with enhanced data management and security for distributed infrastructures. At the same time, the platform now supports additional hypervisors such as OpenShift and Hyper-V, enabling Siemens Industrial Edge to be operated flexibly on existing IT infrastructures. Siemens thus bridges the requirements of both the IT and OT worlds.
IEC 62443-4-2-certified security functions for critical infrastructures, including air-gapped operation in which systems are physically isolated from external networks, are targeted for release in the second half of 2026 and are expected to provide enhanced cybersecurity. The high security and data management capabilities have been independently confirmed. Testing institute UL Solutions has awarded Siemens Industrial Edge and the virtual PLC the “Smart Systems Verified – Platinum” certification, evaluating six key categories: connectivity and interoperability, control and automation, digital experience, functional value, resilience, and cybersecurity.
The Industrial Information Hub has been fundamentally expanded. The data management solution enables bidirectional data flow: data models can now be synchronized in parallel between edge devices and central IT systems in both directions. This opens up new IT/OT integration scenarios. In addition, the new version of the Industrial Information Hub is available on ARM-based devices such as the SIMATIC IOT2050, which can, for example, be operated on battery power, with LTE-based wireless networking planned for a future release. Thanks to energy-efficient operation, this also means edge applications can be implemented at locations without permanent power supply. These innovations are particularly relevant for decentralized SCADA applications in logistics, water and waste management, or for renewable energy.
New partner solutions are also expanding the Industrial Edge ecosystem. Together with 36Zero Vision, MVTec and Basler, solutions are being developed in the areas of machine vision and quality inspection. From AI-driven defect detection and no-code image processing to modularly deployable image processing and analysis functions, companies can integrate machine vision use cases into manufacturing in a scalable manner.
Eigen
Siemens brings AI to the physical world with Eigen Engineering Agent
- New class of industrial AI product moves beyond AI-powered guidance to autonomous task completion
- Now commercially available, Eigen Engineering Agent delivers up to 50 percent efficiency gains in automation engineering tasks
- Latest milestone in Siemens’ announced €1 billion industrial AI investment advances company’s AI-centric growth strategy
The Eigen Engineering Agent is production-ready and available to the more than 600,000 users of Siemens’ Totally Integrated Automation Engineering platform, TIA Portal. It is part of the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio and is digitally available now.
The Eigen Engineering Agent takes its name from the German word “eigen.” While the word translates to “one’s own,” engineers know it best through concepts like “eigenvalues,” which are properties that remain constant even as everything around them transforms. As the AI landscape transforms rapidly and physical AI matures, the Eigen Engineering Agent is designed to be that constant: a steady source of intelligence, rooted in Siemens’ industrial heritage and capable of carrying out real work.
by Gary Mintchell | May 11, 2026 | Edge, Industrial Computers
Industrial automation suppliers are scrambling for advanced compute edge solutions, often through partnerships rather than acquisition. This is the first of Siemens announcements from the recently held Hannover Messe.
Industrial computing and edge AI specialists, OnLogic, and technology company Siemens, a global leader in automation and digitalization, have announced a strategic partnership to extend the Siemens Industrial Edge (IE) ecosystem into “Extreme Edge” environments where standard hardware cannot survive. By combining Siemens Industrial Edge with OnLogic fanless, ruggedized edge computing hardware, the collaboration empowers customers in minerals, energy, and distributed infrastructure to digitize critical assets that have been previously unreachable.
Here are a few of the features sought out for rugged applications.
Modern distributed infrastructure relies on processing data directly at the point of origin, including high-vibration conveyor belts, wash-down floors, and other locations that would challenge or destroy traditional technology solutions. OnLogic devices act as the “rugged armor” for the Siemens IE “brain”, featuring advanced thermal management, interference-limiting enclosures, and capabilities like customizable I/O to pull data from 30-year-old legacy equipment into modern Siemens apps.
Here are a few features:
- Zero-touch scalability and sustainability
- The integrated solution accelerates time-to-value through systems compatible with Siemens Industrial Edge.
- Plug-and-play deployment: OnLogic units support zero-touch provisioning via the Siemens Industrial Edge Management (IEM) platform, enabling rapid global scaling of containerized apps.
- Actionable sustainability: The low-wattage, high-efficiency design of OnLogic hardware helps customers reduce Scope 3 emissions while delivering long product lifecycles to reduce e-waste, helping to make the Siemens DEGREE sustainability standards actionable.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 15, 2026 | Edge, Generative AI, Manufacturing IT
It had to happen. An industrial-strength data center designed for the industrial edge. From Siemens, of course. They’re unveiling at Hannover next week. I will unfortunately not be in Hannover next week. I need funding to cover the expense, and all my past contacts have gone in other directions. Always a valuable experience.
More on the announcement:
- Siemens is making its Industrial Automation DataCenter AI-ready for powerful AI applications in production environments
- Siemens integrates accelerated AI computing power and advanced AI-specific cybersecurity from NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks
- Single source – ready-to-operate, pre-configured and system-tested IT/OT platform for the production environment
In partnership with NVIDIA and in collaboration with Palo Alto Networks, Siemens delivers secure NVIDIA computing infrastructure at the edge for powerful AI acceleration, alongside NVIDIA BlueField data processing units (DPUs) for intelligent real-time data processing and security from Palo Alto Networks Prisma AIRS.
Delivered fully pre-installed, pre-configured, and system-tested from a single source, the turnkey solution combines high-performance virtualization for OT applications, backup and restore capabilities, data archiving, and an industrial demilitarized zone, effectively separating IT networks from OT environments. Through a strategic partnership with NVIDIA and collaboration with Palo Alto Networks, accelerated AI computing power and advanced AI-specific cybersecurity from NVIDIA and Palo Alto Networks is now enabled directly at the edge.
This evolution addresses a critical industry need: implementing standardized, pre-integrated AI infrastructure poses significant challenges for many industrial companies. Building complex, high-performance, and secure AI-capable environments is very demanding, time-consuming, and costly – with integration, installation, and system engineering alone requiring up to 80 hours. Additional risks include compatibility issues and potential operational downtime. With the enhanced Siemens Industrial Automation DataCenter, customers benefit from real-time insights, optimized processes, and enhanced efficiency, yielding substantial gains in productivity and innovation.
Siemens’ Remote Industrial Operations Services include continuous remote monitoring of IT/OT infrastructure, comprehensive cybersecurity measures, regular maintenance and preventive steps, as well as rapid support in the event of incidents. Siemens’ experts monitor and protect companies’ production environments around the clock from the Siemens OT Security Operations Center (SOC), which also reliably protects Siemens’ own facilities worldwide from cyber threats.
Remote Industrial Operations Services offer extends over the entire lifecycle of the Industrial Automation DataCenter and is also flexibly applicable to various IT systems and components in OT environments, including third-party components.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 17, 2026 | Asset Performance Management, Edge, Internet of Things, News
Another news item that became buried in all the AI information flooding my way. Terrence O’Hanlon of Reliability Web considered this significant to the reliability community. The Industrial Internet of Things angle, which seems dated, recently cropped up in a couple of other discussions I’ve had. Of course, “Edge” remains a significant news item. Bringing IIoT to Edge to Enterprise remains a challenge.
These are Terrence’s comments, SUSE Just Acquired Losant:
On February 19, SUSE announced its acquisition of Losant , an Industrial Internet of Things platform. The press release describes a “full-stack open process automation platform at the Edge” and promises interoperability, real-time insights, and freedom from vendor lock-in.
If you work in the Uptime Elements Digitalization Strategy Framework, you just read a press release that could have been written from our 10 Rights of Digitalization Implementation Guide.
This is not a coincidence. It is confirmation.
Let me explain why this acquisition matters — not as a technology story, but as a leadership story — and what it means for every reliability professional navigating the Industrial IoT landscape.
The Acquisition in 30 Seconds
SUSE, the enterprise open source company, acquired Losant to extend its Edge portfolio from infrastructure into operational execution at the “Tiny Edge” — where sensors, controllers, and machines generate the data that drives reliability decisions. SUSE has stated its intention to open source the Losant technology and contribute to the Margo open industrial automation initiative.
The combined platform promises device orchestration, data management, visual workflow engines, customizable dashboards, and AI-driven automation — all built on open standards.
For those of us who have spent years building governance frameworks for exactly this kind of technology, the timing could not be more relevant.
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