By Richard Humphreys |
At Hannover Messe 2026, energy management and automation technology provider Schneider Electric and Microsoft unveiled new agentic capabilities that will allow manufacturing operations to be better connected at every stage, from design and engineering to building and day-to-day processes.
The collaboration will see Schneider Electric will combine its EcoStruxure Automation Expert – its automation platform, which runs in on‑premises, edge and hybrid environments – combine with Microsoft’s Azure cloud and AI services to orchestrate, analyse and optimise industrial processes.
Engineering intent and real‑time operational execution will be connected via Schneider Electric’s platform, enabling teams to standardise reusable logic, validate automation through simulation, maintain traceability throughout the lifecycle and scale interoperable operations across diverse sites and hardware. EcoStruxure Automation Expert allows manufacturers to author, simulate, validate and deploy automation logic once and run it anywhere without retooling.
“From agentic design to software defined operations, Microsoft and Schneider Electric demonstrate a single, interoperable workflow that validates, simulates, and deploys automation logic consistently across cloud and edge,” said Gwenaelle Huet, executive vice president of industrial automation at Schneider Electric.
Schneider Electric’s industrial copilot for manufacturers, powered by Azure AI, is already delivering results in the field: engineering teams have reported up to 50 per cent time savings on control configuration and documentation tasks. Production line changes that previously required weeks now only take hours to complete.
A real-world example is H2E Power in India, which produces green hydrogen. H2E Power’s system ran automatically for over 6,000 hours and the technology also helped cut hydrogen production costs by up to 10 per cent, saving around €500,000 (US$587,000) a year.
“With agentic design, we’re closing the loop from engineering intent to operational reality, automating decisions, validating early, and handing off reusable automation packages that Schneider Electric can simulate and deploy consistently across cloud and edge,” said Dayan Rodriguez, corporate vice president of manufacturing and mobility at Microsoft.