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GE Expands Industrial Internet for Digital Growth in Europe

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Industrial goods manufacturer General Electric Company (GE - Free Report) recently announced steps to augment its digital presence in Europe and foster growth of the industrial ecosystem for the continent’s overall development. The strategic move was largely fueled by the market predictions that digitization of products and services is likely to yield an excess of 110 million Euros in annual revenues in Europe over the next five years.

General Electric also issued a research report that envisions Industrial Internet solutions as one of the driving forces in the European GDP, contributing about $1.7 trillion annually by 2025. By his own submission, Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of the company, stated “GE is committed to helping Europe develop the building blocks for their Industrial Internet that will help the continent’s companies turn information into insights and insights into outcomes.”

Digital Foundry

In order to tap the local talent and nurture technological innovation, General Electric opened a new digital office in Paris – Digital Foundry, which is likely to be the hotbed for the industrial ecosystem. The Digital Foundry is the first of the four digital offices that are set to be opened this year, to form a global network of centers through which GE Digital intends to incubate local startups, form client collaborations to develop new applications and extend the burgeoning community of industrial developers in Europe.    

The first Digital Foundry in Paris will currently create 250 new jobs in the region that is mostly focused on engineering, data science, user experience and design thinking areas. As the company opens more digital offices, it is likely to generate more employment opportunities, thereby uplifting the regional economy.

Digital Access through Predix

The Predix software of General Electric is designed to add intelligence to the Internet of Things applications. It helps companies to connect their machines, data and people and run industrial-scale analytics. Combining machine connectivity with a data lifecycle management platform powered by engineering simulation will help diverse firms to design their products for the Industrial Internet in an optimum manner.

The company has opened both its Predix and Predix.io, which allows third-party software engineers to leverage the platform’s capabilities to build, deploy and scale Industrial Internet applications to developers around the world. General Electric anticipates developing revolutionary ideas in the near future through seamless collaboration with customers and partners in both the private and public sector domains. GE Digital’s CEO Bill Ruh remarked: “We are building an open platform, where GE’s 14,000 developers can collaborate with our customers and partners to create new applications.”

Launch of New Predix-Based Updates

In order to better serve its European customers, General Electric launched two new major updates to its Predix software – ‘Digital Power Plant’ and ‘Brilliant Manufacturing’. The Digital Power Plant software enables various nations to meet the greenhouse gas emissions goals by improving the efficiency and reducing emissions from coal-powered steam plants. The new software can reduce carbon dioxide gas emissions by 3% and lower fuel consumption by 67,000 tons of coal per year without compromising the energy output.

The Brilliant Manufacturing software gathers, connects and analyzes data from various stages of production and helps manufacturers meet production targets through key insights while controlling costs and risks. General Electric has also made the GE Health Cloud available in the U.K., which connects software, hardware and analytics for higher speed and efficiency across hospital settings.

Moving Forward

At the same time, General Electric has formed collaborations with various regional companies like Technip, NUMA, A2A, Capgemini and Yara to transform their businesses. With such concerted efforts, General Electric expects to improve the regional dynamics as well as augment its overall revenues.  

Immelt perfectly sums up “So when I talk about the ‘Industrial Internet,’ it's about capturing data off of machines, turning it back into valuable insight for our customers and that's going to be worth trillions of dollars in the economy, and I think it’s going to transform GE.” (Read More: How Jeff Immelt Transformed GE).

General Electric currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Stocks that look promising in the same industry include China Merchants Holdings (International) Company Limited (CMHHY - Free Report) , Koninklijke KPN N.V. (KKPNF - Free Report) and Dycom Industries Inc. (DY - Free Report) . While China Merchants Holdings and Koninklijke hold a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) each, Dycom sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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