A05B-2255-C102 The roundtable dialogue session of this conference with the theme of “Embracing AI, Building a New Sustainable Future” Invited Bob Gill, General Manager of ARC Consulting Group Southeast Asia, Christian H.Sboro, Independent Member of PGN’s Supervisory Board, Brad Lee, Rotating Chairman of EMQ, Cui Shan, Chairman and President of Zhonghang Technologies, and Kazuhito, Solution Architect of Hitachi Yokoi’s five industry experts and global enterprise leaders conducted in-depth discussions and exchanges on topics such as the transformation of artificial intelligence to the industry, the application of AI technology, a new generation of subversive control systems, and the construction of global ecology, pooling wisdom and consensus, and seeking high-quality development of the industry. Bob Gill moderated the roundtable.
Bob Gill: At present, new technologies such as industrial Internet, big data, digital twin, AI and other new technologies are increasingly integrated into the process industry. How do you see the opportunities and challenges brought by new technologies, especially generative artificial intelligence, to the process industry?
Brad Lee: In the last two years, many industry buzzwords about generatA05B-2255-C102 ive AI have been mentioned frequently, and I firmly believe that generative AI is definitely the future of technology. However, at present, such emerging technologies still face a lot of uncertainties, involving government regulatory policies, whether the reserve and quality of data sets are enough to support large-scale language model training, and whether enterprise R&D personnel have relevant AI skill reserves. Therefore, enterprises need to explore and make trade-offs when thinking about how to properly deploy generative AI technology.
Christian H. Sboro: Cutting-edge technological innovation can bring many new development prospects and business opportunities for enterprises. For example, at PGN, we are currently faced with high costs caused by long product development cycles, unpredictable emergencies, and cumbersome production processes. The rise of artificial intelligence technology is undoubtedly an opportunity to solve PGN’s current dilemma. At the same time, we will encourage employees to change their traditional habits and mindsets, and adopt emerging technologies to truly transform the company from the inside out.
Cui Shan: The concept of artificial intelligence is not a completely new concept in the process industry. In the past, there have been many technologies based on data modeling to achieve industrial upgrading. But when ChatGPT came along, the sheer scale of the data calculus it demonstrated reinforced the value that data brought. Through the fA05B-2255-C102 ull application of artificial intelligence technology, many problems faced by traditional industries will be solved, which will bring explicit advantages such as efficiency improvement and revenue increase. In the future, Zhongcong technology will also go all out to help customers succeed with technological research and development innovation.
Kazuhito Yokoi: At Hitachi, we’ve gone deep into some AI projects where, using generative AI, our factory engineers can develop and generate custom code to get final calculations from massive amounts of data. Before the introduction of generative AI, plant engineers needed to ask IT engineers to direct the development of entire systems, but now, plant engineers can create and expand their role in the IT space. Such a shift could shorten the process and time required for innovation research and development.
Bob Gill: The UCS released this time is a new “software-defined” control system that subverts the physical form of traditional DCS. What new value creation do you think such a completely innovative product will bring to the enterprise?
Christian H. Sboro: UCS certainly solves a lot of enterprise run-layer problems. For example, PGN has a lot of storage and monitoring equipment related to natural gas pipelines. If abnormal conditions such as leakage or corrosion occur, personnel are usually required to go to the site for on-site inspection, which actually has a certain delay. The emergence of UCS can monitor the factory equipment in real time and preventatively, so as to avoid the occurrence of safety accidents and parking accidents. Most importantly, UCS enables predictive modeling and action based on future control parameters.
Kazuhito Yokoi: Hitachi had a lot of edge devices, and it was very difficult to manage them centrally. UCS’s ability to capture and analyze data from a single cabinet is impressive. I think UCS is a very promising solution for the vast majority of people to enhance the overall performance of the business.
Cui Shan: It is very clear that the emergence of UCS can bring significant cost reduction value to the enterprise, about 80% of the cable cost will disappear. Secondly, UCS breaks the barriers between traditional OT, IT and AT, and all applications can operate optimally independently with just one click, which is not only the optimization of labor costs, but also a breakthrough innovation for enterprises. At present, UCS has achieved commercial application, and the central control technology is expected to support more enterprises to achieve digital intelligence value breakthroughs.
