Siemens and NVIDIA Launch AI Manufacturing Solutions at Erlangen Plant

Production preparation is now fully virtualized, cutting engineering effort by up to 85%

Agent-based production planning enables more adaptive manufacturing, saving up to 20% in costs

Erlangen, Germany, October 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Siemens recently unveiled new AI solutions at its electronics factory in Erlangen, Germany—using AI and digital twin technology to not only accelerate production ramp-up but also make production planning more adaptive. These pioneering applications in manufacturing mark a new milestone in Siemens and NVIDIA's collaboration to advance AI-driven autonomous manufacturing. The two companies announced during CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas in January 2026 that they would jointly build the world's first fully AI-driven manufacturing sites, and have since been jointly developing and testing these applications at the Siemens Erlangen factory.

The Erlangen factory serves both as a real-world laboratory for industrial AI and as a blueprint for scaling AI capabilities to more industries. Siemens and NVIDIA aim to jointly let AI empower the underlying logic of manufacturing and comprehensively reshape the entire value chain of products from design and manufacturing to delivery. More applications will be rolled out in the coming months.

Siemens Erlangen factory

"The historic opportunity for Germany and Europe is to bring AI from the data center to the factory floor and let it truly achieve scaled application in industrial scenarios," said Cedrik Neike, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and CEO of Digital Industries. "Today, together with NVIDIA, we are fully demonstrating at the Siemens Erlangen electronics factory how to put this path into practice. This factory, which increases productivity by 7% each year, is already one of the most advanced manufacturing sites in the world. At the same time, the factory receives nearly 3,000 customer visits each year and has become a global hub of industrial innovation. Here, the industrial future is not just a topic of discussion; it is becoming reality every day."

"Factories must be able to handle repetitive tasks as well as respond flexibly to change. AI and simulation make this possible," said Rev Lebaredian, Vice President of Physical AI Simulation at NVIDIA. "In Erlangen, Siemens and NVIDIA have truly brought the results of years of collaboration to the production frontline—training inspection systems with AI before physical prototypes are even built, and repeatedly designing and testing production plans in a simulated environment before adjusting and modifying physical production lines. We are building the blueprint for the future of autonomous factories around the world."

The Siemens and NVIDIA collaboration team developed the first batch of new AI solutions in less than 10 months. These solutions integrate NVIDIA's AI, simulation and accelerated computing technologies with Siemens' industrial software, automation and manufacturing products and expertise. Because they were tested directly in a real production environment, the team was able to refine the products closely around actual manufacturing needs. These new technologies will bring breakthrough efficiency gains in areas such as production planning and product development.

For new printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies—the core components of the drives and frequency converters produced at the Erlangen factory—virtualized production preparation can cut engineering effort by up to 85% and shorten time to market by as much as 40%. In the past, preparing for quality inspection took weeks, because teams had to wait until physical prototypes were available before they could use them to train vision systems and manually configure inspection equipment. Now, AI can generate realistic images directly from the digital twin of PCB assemblies to train vision systems, allowing engineers to prepare inspection in advance without waiting for physical prototypes.

In the factory's production planning process, the new AI solutions are also expected to balance capacity, material supply, delivery dates and production scheduling more quickly and efficiently. Previously, planners could only weigh various factors based on experience and try to make the best possible decisions. Now, at the Siemens Erlangen electronics factory, an AI agent has begun assisting in optimizing this process. Whenever a new order arrives, it automatically generates multiple production plans and shows planners the impact of each option based on defined KPIs. Before execution, these plans are also validated through a digital twin of the entire factory. This end-to-end, AI-agent-based production planning can not only achieve cost savings of up to 20% but also make manufacturing operations more flexible in responding to new orders, material shortages or changes in customer demand.

These results stem from Siemens' industrial software and its technological foundation and experience in manufacturing, as well as various NVIDIA technologies. The NVIDIA Cosmos world model can generate realistic training data for quality inspection. The NVIDIA Factory Operations Blueprint supports AI agents in formulating production plans and helping factories respond flexibly to changing production demands. At the same time, the NVIDIA Omniverse libraries enable the team to use real factory data to test these solutions in a virtual environment first.

The Siemens Erlangen factory is located in southern Germany. Founded in 1971, it now has about 1,000 employees and mainly produces power electronics and automation products for the industrial and infrastructure sectors (including machine tools, battery production, and process and discrete manufacturing industries). For more than a decade, the factory has been testing, developing and applying cutting-edge digital production technologies in actual production. Currently, more than 100 AI algorithms are actively used in production, logistics, quality inspection and maintenance. The factory's expansion plan will continue through 2030, and Siemens has invested 500 million euros in this transformation.

Siemens Erlangen factory