Siemens CEO Roland Busch Talks AI

**SPEAKER_2** (0:02)
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**Ed Ludlow** (0:14)
AI is moving beyond chatbots. And onto the factory floor, helping manufacturers boost productivity with industrial AI becoming a bigger part of the conversation. Joining us now is Siemens CEO, Roland Busch, who recently met with European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen and other tech leaders to discuss AI's role in Europe's industrial future. But I would note as well, Roland, you were the first conversation I had this year. We started 2026 with Jensen Wang talking about the transition into the physical world. Just very simply, to start, why Siemens is betting so much on industrial AI?

**Roland Busch** (0:52)
Actually, because Siemens is really geared for this moment to bring AI into the real world. We call it industrial AI. Why?
You need a couple of things. Number one is you need a technology stack, and the stack includes hardware and software. Both are super relevant. Number two is domain know-how. We know how to build things. We are on the shop floor. The next one is data. We have a lot of data, our own data, data shared with our customers and partners.
And we have the trust of our customers because when the AI hits the real world, hallucination is not an option. So you need hardcore results. They should work. So we have all this, and we can bring it now to the real world. And last but not least, we have great partners, like NVIDIA, like some others, who are with us in making this transformation for our customers.

**Ed Ludlow** (1:45)
I asked you at CES in January, give me a case study, an example, some evidence of AI in a factory anywhere in the world. Fast forward to June. Is it real now? Is there a deployment that you can point to? Please.

**Roland Busch** (2:00)
It's Reno. And we can talk about the design phase, the manufacturing phase, and the operation phase when your assets are in the field. But you talked about an example on the shop floor. Actually, we now launched our Eigen Engineering Agent. What is it? It is an agent which programs an industrial PC for you. So if you have a cutting chop on the shop floor, and the cutting is not precise anymore. Now, an engineer has to go there, reprogram your PLC and so on. Eigen Engineering Agent does it for you. You say, I mean, my cutting machine is not, working precisely.
Eigen Engineering Agent analyzes the problem, breaks the problem down, looks for all the data, the machines, the chop which has to be done, analyzes it, develops a code, runs it, compiles it. If it doesn't work, it compiles it over again, fixes it until you can say, now go, and you push a button, and then PLC is running with the same precision as before. So, we are producing about 50% higher productivity, while the quality of your programming is increasing by 80%.
So, this is a real factor. Now we're introducing another function where electrical design comes also into place. But it's a real, and this was not available in the market so far. We brought it to the market and ready to expand to other use cases too.

**Ed Ludlow** (3:30)
So, either by geography or by sector, is there a market where there's just more speed here?
We reflected on your meeting with the European Commission, notoriously, red tape can get in the way. What are you seeing in different markets around the world?

**Roland Busch** (3:47)
I mean, the hottest market, as we can imagine currently, is AI factories and data centers. And here we are really in the design phase.
We created a blueprint, a whitepaper, for how an AI factory in the future looks like. And guess what? It's based on a digital twin.
And this digital twin is optimized with AI, obviously. But if you talk about other markets, for example, the fast-growing markets, which really need productivity and speed, semiconductors, a lot of investment going there, a lot of fab spills, pharmaceutical, there's a lot of investment also going to the United States. And aerospace and defense, we are ramping up our capabilities to produce stuff. So there are a lot of sectors. And then last but not least, I mean, the car industry is also under pressure. They need to evolve faster, having faster cycles, being more flexible in their production. So it can go on and on. And the topic is always the same. It will be faster in your design process, using AI coming from simulation, which verifies to simulation, which creates new designs, and all the way in the factory, way down to the point that you are deploying more and more robots. And guess what? Robots are also AI-based automation devices.