Siemens partners with Microsoft to offer AI-enhanced solutions for resilient PLM

Siemens Digital Industries Software has announced the expansion of its partnership with Microsoft to make the Siemens Xcelerator as a Service portfolio of industry software available through Microsoft’s cloud and AI platform Azure and integrating it with generative AI and Copilot features. This will increase flexibility and choice for Siemens’ customers and make Microsoft’s industry-leading AI solutions more accessible to Siemens customers.

“Our customers have asked for Siemens to bring our industry leading industrial software to Azure,” said Tony Hemmelgarn, CEO and president, Siemens Digital Industries Software. “Siemens and Microsoft have been partners for more than 35 years, and we are pleased to expand this partnership so we can best enable our customers to digitally transform through our joint solutions.”

As a first step, Siemens will deliver Teamcenter X software, the rapidly scalable and secure PLM solution, on Microsoft Azure, enabling customers to implement their mission critical solutions on their preferred cloud and AI platform. Built on the same trusted, robust and secure Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) architecture used by some of the world’s leading manufacturers and innovators, Teamcenter X empowers teams to start fast and get their product data under control, enabling them to reduce cycle time, minimize IT costs and speed innovation. With the availability of Teamcenter X on Azure, organizations can benefit from Microsoft’s responsible AI tools and access to enterprise-grade security.

This continued collaboration builds on the launch of the Teamcenter app on Microsoft Teams which connects frontline factory and service teams to the design and engineering teams through Siemens’ industry-leading Teamcenter software for PLM. The new app takes advantage of the latest advances in generative AI and Natural Language Processing: With Azure OpenAI in Azure AI Studio, Siemens developers have built custom copilot functionality to enable frontline workers to access the engineering enterprise from the palm of their hand and collaborate in more inclusive ways.

Siemens is also developing a Copilot for Microsoft 365 plugin for the Siemens Teamcenter app on Teams, enabling workers across the entire product lifecycle and value chain to better track and prioritize their workloads. They will be able to ask Microsoft Copilot for help with summarizing outstanding tasks and workflows out of the comfort of their Teams app. To deliver new features like these to customers as fast as possible, Siemens developers are using GitHub Copilot.

“As Microsoft and Siemens continue to deepen our collaboration, we are excited to bring the power of Azure AI to the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to meet growing market demand and help businesses focus on delivering differentiated customer value faster. By harnessing our latest advances with generative AI and Copilot capabilities, together we empower design engineers, frontline workers and teams across business functions and geographies, unlocking new levels of customer-centric innovation and productivity,” said Nick Parker, President, Industry & Partnerships at Microsoft.