Siemens has announced a new $150 million smart factory in Dallas-Fort Worth in the US to supply electrical equipment to US data centers and critical infrastructure. The new facility will make use of sundry Siemens-made IoT and AI software tools, notably to support digital twin and factory automation technology. There is no mention of CBRS-based private cellular in the press note. The new project takes the German firm’s total investment in US manufacturing to more than $500 million since the start of the year. It expects to create 1,700 jobs, it said.
The factory in Dallas-Forth Worth will produce “reliable and efficient… critical electrical infrastructure equipment”, and seek to serve and “accelerate” the US market for edge and cloud compute infrastructure – spiralling upwards with the “exponential adoption of generative AI”, the company said. The data centre market will grow at around 10 percent per year through 2030, it reckons. The company added: “It will also ensure secure operation of critical infrastructure.” Production at the new site will start in January (2024); production will go at full tilt from 2025.
The site will be built and operated by Siemens, and make use of its Xcelerator marketplace of Industry 4.0 solutions, which unites third-party industrial vendors around its own portfolio of industrial IoT and AI solutions. It stated: “[The Xcelerator portfolio] will be used to capture and analyse data from the shopfloor on production and product performance in real time.” The implication, clearly, is that Siemens will gear-up a number of IoT applications from inception, including for predictive maintenance, quality inspections, environmental monitoring, plus more advanced production-line automation.
Siemens announced a $220 million investment in a new rail manufacturing facility in Lexington, North Carolina, earlier this year. Construction of the facility is now underway. The company is also investing in two electrical-products manufacturing plants in Grand Prairie, Texas, and Pomona, California. The latter two venues are also geared to meet demand for the electrification of critical infrastructure – “in other words, data centers, battery plants, semiconductor facilities, and electric vehicle (EV) charging”, it said. Its investments in US manufacturing total $510 million in 2023; the firm set a €2 billion ($2.15bn) global investment strategy in June.
Its plan is to build a slew of new “high-tech factories, innovation labs, and education centres”. It has made parallel investments in smart manufacturing facilities in China, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
Roland Busch, president and chief executive at Siemens, said: “There’s never been a better time to invest in critical electrical infrastructure and green mobility to support the backbone of America’s economy. The hardware and software we offer – produced through our expanded US manufacturing presence – will ensure that growing industries can meet demand while continuing to make progress in decarbonizing operations. With this latest step, Siemens is delivering on its €2 billion global investment strategy for 2023 to boost growth, innovation and resilience.”
