Hannover Messe 2023: Microsoft showcases AI and the industrial metaverse in manufacturing

The Hannover Messe fair was back in full strength this past April 17 to 21, 2023. This year over 130,000 manufacturers, technology providers, government officials, and members of academia came together to experience how the industry is leveraging technology to transform towards carbon neutrality. Microsoft and its industry partners, aligned to our commitments to industry and the environment, were yet again present to showcase innovative solutions aimed at improving productivity, efficiency, and sustainability in various industrial settings.

Microsoft at Hannover Messe 2023

Our customers and partners joined the Microsoft team of manufacturing experts to showcase co-innovation and demonstrate how we are working together to manufacture a more resilient and sustainable future. During this week-long event, we showcased demos, held customer meetings and innovation workshops, thought leadership panels, social hours, and partnership announcements. Take a look at this brief highlight video.

On this edition, we had 36 demos in our booth, many of them led by our partners and customers, addressing how together we are helping manufacturers achieve their top goals of unlocking innovation, creating resilient supply chains, enabling intelligent factories, and modernizing sales and services.

• Unlock innovation: Engineer new business value using industrial metaverse technologies like AI, mixed reality, digital twins, simulation, and cloud computing, come together to deliver sustainable products and services.
• Create resilient supply chains: Create sustainable, agile, and collaborative supply chains that improve visibility and resilience.
• Enable intelligent factories: Operate the safe, secure, and agile factory of the future today, with information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), industrial Internet of Things (IoT), and AI.
• Modernize digital sales and services: Modernize customer experiences across marketing, sales, and service channels.

From all these demos, there were two overarching topics that captured unprecedented attention from the attendees, AI and the industrial metaverse. We were honored to see several of our partners like Bosch, Siemens, and Sight Machine displaying solution integrations with Azure OpenAI Service, to leverage the power of generative AI for use cases like; programming machines with large language models or analyzing unstructured machine data to generate production reports in seconds. On the supply chain side, we saw how several of our customers like Kraft Heinz leverages AI embedded on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot to proactively mitigate supply chain risk, and how Northvolt could use Dynamics 365 Copilot to perform asset maintenance to ensure all day uptime of their factories to meet their customer demand.

It was also incredible to feel the excitement around the industrial metaverse at the booth, our customers, like e.GO Mobile AG and Kawasaki Heavy Industries demonstrated how they are leveraging Microsoft technologieslike mixed reality and digital twinsto enable frontline workers and optimize factory processes and realize industrial metaverse outcomes.

Accelerate digital transformation with customers and partners

In addition to demos, we met with hundreds of customers during the conference, having discussions on how Microsoft can help them accelerate their digital transformation and achieve business outcomes faster. Microsoft presence at the event garnered an incredible media response, notably several news channel interviews with Marianne Janik, CEO, Microsoft Germany. Microsoft also reinforced at the event its recently announced partnerships with Siemens on Teamcenter and Microsoft Teams integration to leverage AI, and with NVIDIA to connect their Omniverse Platform to Microsoft 365 applications.

In our dedicated gallery space, we hosted several thought leadership sessions covering pressing topics for the industry, like the need to accelerate resiliency in the supply chain, adopting the industrial metaverse as part of your technology roadmap, and opportunities and challenges for women in manufacturing. Session details:

• Supply chain reimagined:Showcased along with Accenture Avanade, practical ways supply chain teams can create co-pilot experiences with AI to improve productivity in partnership with Accenture Avanade.
• Realizing a new era of industrial digitalization: Panel conversation that explored how our customers BMW and WPP are leveraging industrial metaverse technologies today and why they are excited for the possibilities that NVIDIA's Omniverse on Azure enables.
• Women in manufacturing:Panel conversation formed by executives from Microsoft, SAP, Hexagon, and Avanade, to discuss the opportunities and challenges women in manufacturing face today.

We want to thank all the customers and partners who joined us at the booth as exhibitors, and the thousands of attendees who came by to engage with us.

Learn more

Follow us on social and visit our website to stay informed about Microsoft Cloud for Manufacturing and learn how you can help manufacture a more resilient and sustainable future. We look forward to seeing you at Hannover Messe 2024 or connecting with you through hybrid or on-demand experiences.

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More about Hannover Messe 2023 from the organizers:

Hannover Messe 2023 shows the difference that exhibiting companies can make, the changes they are driving, and the innovations they are developingon the way to a smart, energy-efficient, and sustainable industry. Hannover Messe 2023's lead theme, Industrial TransformationMaking the Difference, reflects this. From digitalized manufacturing processes to hydrogen-operated production plants and carbon reduction software, Hannover Messe 2023 paints a complete picture of the technological possibilities for the industry of today and tomorrow.

As the world's leading trade fair for industrial technology, Hannover Messe picks up on the current trends and provides everyone involved with orientation in times of energy shortages, climate change, and supply chain problems. How do you install intelligent energy management and thus create an environment for CO2-neutral production? What are the latest developments surrounding Industry 4.0 and AI? And how about the mega-topic, hydrogen?

Hannover Messe features all relevant industry topicsat the exhibits, at the forums, and in dialogue with experts from all over the world. From drive and fluid technology to digital platforms and IT security to industrial internet and robotics, the huge variety reflects the manufacturing industry's broad scope and provides important economic and social impulses every year.

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