GE Moves Machines to the Cloud

First-of-its-kind Industrial Strength Big Data & Analytics Platform Connects Machines and Business Operations in the Cloud

Industrial Internet Platform Built for Unique Scale of Industrial Data; New Wikibon Report Estimates Industrial Data Growth Rate 2X Any Other Big Data Segment

  • GE “Predictivity” Services and Technologies for the Industrial Internet reduce waste and unplanned downtime of critical machines – jet engines, healthcare technology, power turbines and locomotives
  • Delivers First Hadoop-Based Software for High-Volume, Machine Data Management
  • Expanded Partnerships with Accenture and Pivotal Enhance Industry Solutions and Reach; Expanded Relationship with Amazon Web Services

SAN FRANCISCO--()--GE (NYSE: GE) announced today the first big data and analytics platform robust enough to manage the data produced by large-scale, industrial machines in the cloud. Built to support the Industrial Internet and turn big data into real-time insight, the platform will benefit major global industries including aviation, healthcare, energy production and distribution, transportation and manufacturing. Combined with the new GE PredictivityTM services and technologies available today, airlines, railroads, hospitals and utilities can manage and operate critical machines such as jet engines and gas turbines in the cloud – running businesses better by increasing productivity and reducing waste and downtime. This marks the first time industrial companies will have a common architecture, combining intelligent machines, sensors and advanced analytics.

GE’s industrial strength platform is supported by the new Proficy Historian HD – the first Hadoop-based historian data management software. Historian delivers real-time data management, analytics, and machine-to-operations connectivity in a secure, closed-loop architecture so critical global industries can move from a reactive to a predictive industrial operating model.

Bill Ruh, VP of the Global Software Center, GE, said, “GE’s industrial strength platform is the first viable step to not only the next era of industrial productivity, but the next era of computing. The ability to bring machines to life with powerful software and sensors is a big advancement - but it is only in the ability to quickly analyze, understand, and put machine-based data to work in real-time that points us to a society that benefits from the promise of big data. This is what the Industrial Internet is about and we are building an ecosystem with partners to save money for our customers and unlock new value for society.”

Expanded Partnerships

Announced today, GE and partners will continue to advance the Industrial Internet by integrating services and developing software, analytics, and cloud-based capabilities that serve diverse functions for industry. Partnerships include:

  • A global strategic alliance with Accenture to develop technology and analytics applications that help companies across industries take advantage of the massive amounts of industrial strength big data that is generated through their business operations. This alliance expands on the aviation joint venture Taleris, announced in 2012 to provide airlines with technology that predicts likely failures of aircraft parts and systems and recommends preventive action.
  • An extension of the technology partnership with Pivotal to jointly develop and deploy Industrial Internet solutions leveraging their Cloud Foundry, in-memory and Hadoop-based technology and supporting GE’s strategy of bringing consumer-grade capabilities to the enterprise.
  • A strategic relationship with Amazon Web Services, who will be the first cloud provider on which GE will deploy its Industrial Internet platform. GE will leverage Amazon Web Services powerful, scalable, low-cost platform to offer GE’s customers cloud solutions for industrial applications and infrastructure.

“Pivotal and GE share a vision for a common platform that is cloud-agnostic and based on modern, scale-out technologies; and does it all at speeds faster than what was previously possible,” said Pivotal CEO Paul Maritz. “Our respective strengths in big and fast data analytics and agile software development will provide our mutual customers with the solutions they need to leverage the Industrial Internet and begin building or deploying applications that make them more efficient year after year.”

“Decades of GE-led innovation have helped shape history, and we are excited to work with the GE team to help shape the future of Industrial Big Data,” said Werner Vogels, Amazon.com Chief Technology Officer. “GE’s domain knowledge and R&D capabilities combined with the strength of AWS’s global infrastructure, breadth of services and big data expertise will help enable customers to solve problems in ways we haven’t even imagined yet, such as improved accuracy in healthcare treatments or extreme levels of energy efficiency.”

Bigger and Faster Data

GE’s platform is the first that can truly manage industrial big data, which is far more complex than other types of new and emerging content and information available today. According to Defining and Sizing the Industrial Internet and The Industrial Internet and Big Data Analytics: Opportunities and Challenges, issued today by The Wikibon Project, industries have been slower than enterprises to take advantage of cloud environments because industrial big data has unique requirements and managing this complex data requires enormous computing power. According to the new report:

  • Unprecedented Growth of Machine Data: Industrial data will grow at two times the rate of any other Big Data segment within the next ten years. Intensive machine-based software and services – including capturing sensor data, performing local processes and industrial analytics in real-time, and distributing data to end points – are required to deal with this massive growth in Industrial high-data output. Wikibon estimates that the total Industrial Internet Technology Spend will reach $514 billion by 2020.
  • Velocity: Instant analysis of huge amounts of incoming raw data at millisecond speed, as well as the flexibility to interact with and compare to other existing industrial data streams, is critical to the real-time decision making required to make this data actionable and drive positive outcomes.
  • Value: By 2020, the total Industrial Internet Value Creation will reach nearly $1.3 trillion. This represents the improvement in efficiency, productivity and other associated benefits that result from exploiting Industrial Internet technologies.

Jeff Kelly, Big Data Analyst, The Wikibon Project, said, “Our research found that an industrial strength cloud environment needs to meet the challenges of integrating large volumes of machine data with data from other sources while executing near real-time analytics. GE is well positioned – it has both the Industrial Internet technology and the deep expertise across healthcare, energy, transportation and aviation - to develop and deliver software and services capable of scaling and delivering meaningful insight and action from complex industrial data.”

“Predictivity” Industrial Internet Solutions – Asset and Operation Outcomes

Global industries are now able to leverage connected machines, advanced sensors and controllers, and to analyze industrial Big Data to increase efficiency and productivity of both physical assets and operations using GE’s “Predictivity” Industrial Internet solutions. Built on GE’s new industrial strength platform, “Predictivity” represents the most advanced software-based, cross-industry products designed specifically to deliver secure access to industrial-grade decision support tools, automation, and expertise and optimize asset and operational outcomes. These include condition-based maintenance, outage management, fuel consumption, and controls and plant automation. The solutions are cloud-agnostic, enabling them to be deployed at the asset, facility or total fleet level on-premise at a customer site, in GE’s cloud, or in a trusted 3rd-party public cloud. For example, GE’s new Flex Efficiency technology, allows utilities to run advanced data modeling and simulations to optimize power output to meet fluctuating distribution demands. By doing this, customers can move the compute-intensive processing by machines to the cloud saving time and money during varying conditional needs, such as a spike in the power grid due to falling temperatures. For more details visit www.ge.com/predictivity.

About GE: GE {NYSE: GE} works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works.

Amazon Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment and data center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

Contacts

GE
Leigh Farris, 203-551-1863
leigh.farris@ge.com
or
Holly Gilthorpe, 408-644-0416
gilthorpe@ge.com

Contacts

GE
Leigh Farris, 203-551-1863
leigh.farris@ge.com
or
Holly Gilthorpe, 408-644-0416
gilthorpe@ge.com