Siemens plans €0.5 billion industrial metaverse-based hub in Germany
Siemens is planning to centre its global technology activities for the industrial metaverse in a new campus at its Erlangen facility.
The new campus, part of a €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) investment planned in Germany and €2 billion globally in 2023, is set to become a hub for global research and development and manufacturing drawing increasingly on the industrial metaverse.
Specifically, according to a statement, the campus will focus on “sustainable and future-oriented high-tech manufacturing, related research and development activities, and the opening of the location for an ecosystem of partners from the business and scientific communities.”
Currently the Erlangen factory manufactures products in industrial automation and digitalisation including power electronics components and machine tool controls for the machine building industry.
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While already highly automated with robotics, with this combination of the real and the digital worlds Siemens anticipates strengthening the Erlangen location as a hub for digital production concepts, such as industrial 3D printing and innovative power electronics.
In preparation, employees are reported as upgrading their skills both to prepare themselves for the digital transformation of the working world but also to actively shape it.
“Siemens is banking on innovation in Germany and launching the next stage of digitalisation: we’re laying the foundation for the industrial metaverse in the Nuremberg metropolitan region,” said Roland Busch, president and CEO of Siemens AG.
“Together with partners, we’re developing new digital technologies in the metaverse and revolutionising how we’ll run our production in the future – much more efficiently, flexibly and sustainably.”
The plan for the location calls for both conversion of the existing facilities and expansion of the site.
The development itself will draw on the metaverse, with the plan that the new buildings will be developed with a digital twin, which will enable the layout to be optimised and then implemented in the real world.
The approximately 200,000m2 area also is planned to be a net zero location. Proposals include an innovative energy infrastructure, green energy supply and energy storage in partnership with the city of Erlangen and the extensive use of Siemens’ digital building technology solutions.
Through this investment, Siemens is now creating a blueprint for the industrial metaverse, a virtual representation of the real world – photorealistic, physics-based and in real time, the Siemens statement says.
Previously Siemens partnered with Nvidia to advance the industrial metaverse connecting Nvidia’s Omniverse platform with Siemens’ software and solutions.
Siemens has a history of development of digital twins, the foundation of the industrial metaverse, in various sectors. For example, as far back as 2018 the company worked with Fingrid on a digital twin of Finland’s power grid and more recently has demonstrated how the technology can improve efficiencies in water management.
