GE wants to be the next Microsoft.
General Electric, a company known for its machines, is tapping the power of artificial intelligence to help it to expand into the industrial software business by 2020.
GE currently uses AI-like workers and wants to help other companies to do the same. The company is trying to get AI act as repairmen, listening to the machinery and predicting when new parts are needed. But like any cognitive technology, it needs to be taught—and that requires a lot of data.
To do generate this data, GE has made”digital twins” for wind turbines, generators, or train and plane engines that are basically lines of code simulating the machine’s tasks. This allows the company to predict the machine’s lifespan, which in turn, help them improve its products, according to MIT Technology Review.
GE has invested $1 billion towards this software push, but it’s already getting some returns on the company’s investment in the”digital twins.” For example, the computer models have increased the output of GE’s wind farms by as much as 20 percent.
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