Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
The role of the cloud in digitally transformed industrial architectures is well established, whether as hosting platforms for enterprise applications or their recent descent to the industrial IoT edge. Industrial cloud platforms 
are available from a broad spectrum of supplier types, ranging from traditional manufacturing providers, such as Siemens (MindSphere) or GE Digital (Predix), to enterprise applications software providers like IBM, Oracle, and SAP.
Public cloud offerings, such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS), play an increasingly important role in industrial architectures, but until now Google Cloud, the other major public hyperscaler, has operated largely on the periphery – typically in enterprise analytics applications. This posture is changing, however, with the company now declaring manufacturing as an important industry, directing significant developmental resources to solve important issues for manufacturers, and introducing dedicated solutions for both manufacturing and supply chain operations.
Targeted Business Outcomes
The Google Cloud strategy for manufacturing is focused on three specific business outcomes: digitization of the customer journey and value proposition, optimization of both operations and product development, and acceleration of digital transformation. Components of the customer digitization effort include leveraging Google Cloud’s core AI and ML competencies to respond to the heightened expectations of the digital customer, revenue acceleration through digitization, and enabling new ways of working – including virtually and remotely. Google Cloud is already working with reference customer Ford Motor in these areas to accelerate automotive innovation and reinvent the connected vehicle experience.
Optimizing Operations and Product Development
The Google Cloud smart factory platform and visual inspection AI releases are primary enablers behind the operations and product development optimization targets, as well as supply chain optimization and resilience, energy optimization, and R&D acceleration. Components of the smart factory platform include smart factory intelligence (factory analytics and insights), AI-driven operations optimization (visual inspection, in-line quality control, predictive maintenance, etc.), as well as connectivity, data processing and contextualization, and a common data model. Google Cloud is already working with France’s Groupe Renault in these areas, while Foxconn is deploying visual inspection AI to transform PCB manufacturing and boost model precision rates.
Litmus Edge-to-Google Cloud Platform
In June of this year Google Cloud announced a related partnership with industrial edge software platform provider Litmus, whereby Google Cloud will incorporate Litmus’ industrial edge computing platform into its Edge-to-Cloud Smart Factorysuite. The Litmus platform is purpose-built for collecting, processing, and analyzing data at the edge from industrial machines. Machine-level data can be integrated with the Google Cloud for analytics, AI, and machine learning, enabling high-value manufacturing use cases and fast time-to-value for customers. The expanded alliance more tightly integrates each company’s offerings and allows customers to purchase directly from Google through a go-to-market partnership.
Accelerating Digital Transformation
SAP is a lead partner in the Google Cloud digital transformation acceleration initiative, which looks to connect operational and business data at scale and create digitally intelligent, future-proof industrial organizations. The digital supply chain component of this initiative looks to address the perceived visibility, flexibility, and intelligence limitations of today’s supply chain operations. A digital supply chain twin, accompanying supply chain pulse platform, and AI-based supply chain simulation capabilities are core components of this offering, which ultimately leads to the promise of an autonomous supply chain. Reference customers for these offerings include Home Depot (reduced stockouts, increased sales) and Unilever (sustainable sourcing).
Differentiation Based on AI/ML Prowess, Open Source, Collaboration
Google Cloud is leveraging their well-known prowess in AI and ML-based applications as a primary differentiator relative to other industrial cloud competitors. Their emphasis lies in delivering business outcomes through data-driven real-time insights via an open source, flexible platform capable of operating in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The company likewise employs a collaborative, partner-based approach, which enables them to more quickly bring dedicated solutions based on their platform to market.
Recent industry emphasis on AI and ML as the means of achieving incremental operational in-sights and associated business outcomes has already brought many traditional automation players into this realm. Google Cloud’s expanding partner list includes leading industrial providers ranging from ABB, Hitachi Vantara, OSIsoft, and Siemens to service providers such as Accenture, Capgemini, and Deloitte. In most cases, we expect these traditional players to continue to develop and refine dedicated industry solutions and manage the interaction with the industrial end customer while Google Cloud provides extensive analytical and compute infrastructure capabilities.