PARIS — In a recent statement, GE announced the expansion of its digital presence in Europe and the launch of new products, partnerships and initiatives designed to foster growth of the digital industrial ecosystem across Europe. The company announced the opening of a new digital office in Paris, a Digital Foundry, which will serve as the hub of this ecosystem.
“Europe has the talent and infrastructure to lead a productivity revolution and the digitization of industry must be at the core of this mission,” said GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt. “GE is committed to helping Europe develop the building blocks for their Industrial Internet that will help the continent’s companies turn information into insights and insights into outcomes.”
The new Digital Foundry will serve European customers and partners and will be located within the historic Le Centorial building in the 2nd arrondissement. It is the first of four foundries planned this year, establishing a global network of centers through which GE Digital will incubate local startups, collaborate with customers to develop new applications and extend the growing community of industrial developers in Europe. This first Digital Foundry will add 250 jobs in Paris, focused on engineering, data science, user experience and design thinking.
EXPANDING THE DIGITAL INDUSTRIAL ECOSYSTEM
“The digitization of industry in Europe requires not only leadership and investment from companies such as GE and our partners – but also more collaboration between the private and public sector,” said GE Digital CEO Bill Ruh. “We are building an open platform, where GE’s 14,000 developers can collaborate with our customers and partners to create new applications.”
New Offerings Drive Digital Transformation
Recent studies estimate that the digitization of products and services will add more than €110 billion in annual revenue for industry in Europe over the next five years. To fuel that transformation, GE has innovative products to address customer needs.
In April, GE Digital announced the release of its Asset Performance Management (APM) suite, the first set of commercially available applications to run on Predix. On 6/14/16 it announced two major updates to the GE Digital software set, both of which improve its ability to service major European customers.
GE Power released new Digital Power Plant software designed to play a significant role in helping nations meet COP21 greenhouse gas emissions goals. The software will help European power customers such as Yildirim improve the efficiency and reduce emissions from coal-powered steam plants. Coal plants generate 40% of the world’s electricity. GE Power’s new software can reduce CO2 emissions from those plants by 3% and reduce fuel consumption by 67,000 tons of coal per year with the same MW of output.
Additionally, GE Digital’s Brilliant Manufacturing suite will run on Predix, planned for Q3 2016. Brilliant Manufacturing is able to gather, connect and analyze data from every aspect of production and leverage those insights to help manufacturers meet production targets, while controlling costs and risk. Brilliant Manufacturing is also the technology behind GE’s Brilliant Factories, which is currently in use improving GE’s own operations.
Driving Outcomes with New Customers and Partners
GE Oil & Gas and Technip signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore new digital solutions, focused on the design and build of new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects. The two companies will work together to explore the application of Predix and digital solutions to the engineering, construction, commissioning, startup and operation phases for LNG facilities.
As part of the Foundry opening, GE also partnered with NUMA, the first startup accelerator in France, government agencies, and Bpifrance, (Banque Publique d’Investissement) to identify and grow high-potential ideas and startups in the region.
“Having GE’s European foundry’s headquarter in Paris is a great opportunity, and we will closely work with GE Digital to create and structure an innovation ecosystem around the Industrial Internet. We are confident that we can build a strong community of startups, data scientists, developers and software experts to find solutions to complex industrial challenges,” said Marie-Vorgan Le Barzic, CEO, NUMA.
“BPI France promotes innovation by investing and supporting the French entrepreneurial ecosystem. This partnership with GE Digital through the European Foundry in Paris aims at developing local digital industrial small and medium enterprises, while leveraging their expertise,” said Nicolas Dufourcq, Executive Director for Bpifrance.
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