Siemens expands partnership with Microsoft, moves Xcelerator to Azure

On May 14, 2024, Siemens Digital Industries Software announced making Siemens Xcelerator available through Microsoft Azure, the Redmond-based tech giant’s native cloud and AI platform. This will enhance the user experience and allow customers access to more of Microsoft’s AI-powered solutions.

Speaking to Siemens Newsroom on the partnership, Tony Hemmelgarn, CEO and President of Siemens Digital Industries Software, said,

Our customers have asked for Siemens to bring our industry leading industrial software to Azure. Siemens and Microsoft have been partners for more than 35 years, and we are pleased to expand this partnership so we can best enable our customers to digitally transform through our joint solutions.

Early on, after the expansion, Siemens will host the native Teamcenter X on Microsoft Azure, allowing teams to save on IT costs, minimize cycle time, boost speed, and facilitate better data control.

Siemens has also confirmed the development of a Copilot for Microsoft 365 plugin for the Teamcenter app on Microsoft Teams. It will allow workers to keep better track of the workload progress, letting them effectively prioritize tasks. The plugin will also help workers generate quick summaries of pending tasks.

While speaking on the expansion of the existing partnership, Nick Parker, President of Industry & Partnerships at Microsoft, said,

As Microsoft and Siemens continue to deepen our collaboration, we are excited to bring the power of Azure AI to the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to meet growing market demand and help businesses focus on delivering differentiated customer value faster. By harnessing our latest advances with generative AI and Copilot capabilities, together we empower design engineers, frontline workers and teams across business functions and geographies, unlocking new levels of customer-centric innovation and productivity.

In January this year, Siemens built a custom Copilot aimed at reducing workload and improving worker productivity. Also, recently, the two, Microsoft and Siemens, merged their digital twin languages into a unified framework, simplifying the digital landscape and providing direct benefits to customers.