112 INTERVIEW Building industrial AI that works Radical collaboration has the power to break down silos, which is the key to building trustworthy, scalable systems, says Guillaume Boué of AVEVA How can we solve the toughest critical infrastructure and manufacturing challenges? According to Guillaume Boué, head of strategic technology partners at AVEVA, the answer lies in radical collaboration. But what is radical collaboration and how will it help the industrial sector to build trustworthy, scalable AI systems that will transform how it operates? Boué shares his insights. Can you explain the concept of radical collaboration and why it will help solve challenges? Radical collaboration is about sharing data across departments, companies and extended ecosystems of business partners, bringing a multidisciplinary approach to problems and tapping into systems thinking. It’s a departure from the old way of working, where key stakeholders are sealed off in protective silos. Radical collaboration is built on the recognition that sharing information doesn’t diminish its value but rather multiplies it. Collaboration unlocks synergies across the operational lifecycle and sparks innovation where disciplines intersect. Above all, radical collaboration is absolutely critical for delivering trustworthy, scalable AI – grounded in industrial realities. What does radical collaboration look like in practice? Why is it essential for effective AI implementation and scaling? Our partnership with Microsoft exemplifies radical collaboration. Together, we help customers build industrial AI roadmaps rooted in domain expertise, operational realities and shared innovation. As Noel Phillips, senior vice president of the Americas at AVEVA, puts it: ‘We’ve learned that the future of industrial AI isn’t about forcing new technology into old systems, it’s about leveraging existing investments while helping customers imagine what comes next. Across the world, critical operations continue to run in tightly segmented, on-premise environments, delivering essential functions for very good business reasons. AVEVA brings deep industrial data-management expertise, while Microsoft brings cloud and AI leadership. Together, through our bold partnership, we’re unifying these worlds and unlocking data that has been untapped in those segments for decades. Leaders like Dominion Energy, among many others, are proving what’s possible in transforming data into intelligence that powers the next era of industrial innovation.’ Our Industrial AI Assistant – an AI-powered tool that helps engineers make complex operational decisions in real time – is one of the clearest examples of radical collaboration in action. It’s a joint innovation developed through CONNECT Visualization Services and powered by Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, combining AVEVA’s deep understanding of industrial data and its specific context with Microsoft’s AI and cloud leadership. This co-development shows what happens when domain expertise and AI converge. Engineers can now ask complex operational questions in natural language and get context-aware answers drawn directly from live source data, leading to faster and smarter decisions. BY REBECCA GIBSON
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