Industrial transformation
Need for an iPhone moment
Industrial transformation through AI solutions
As the world began closing down, the digital world that we’ve built, has proven itself to be fundamental in keeping our societies and economies up and running.
Our experience has also shown us that we have a lot of work to do when it comes to ensuring that our technologies not only help us persevere, but actually allow us to continue to build and innovate through times of crisis. The single greatest and still largely untapped resource to do this, is data.
Data can be a supercharger for lasting, sustainable transformation.
Consumer product industries, media, marketers, and individuals have gained the most ground in the data revolution, and asset-intensive industries like oil & gas, manufacturing, renewables, and power & utilities, can learn a lot their advances.
Data can be a supercharger for lasting, sustainable transformation for them. Data is a prerequisite for advanced AI and analytics, optimized and remote operations, predictive maintenance, and seamless reporting & accountability of industry waste, emissions, and sustainability metrics.
Asset industry is closer to its “iphone-moment”.
These feats are all proven and happening in pockets around the world. But unlike the wider consumer world, there hasn’t yet been an “iPhone moment” for these heavy industries. To get to a place where AI and other advanced technologies can usher in that moment for industry, we need to cut through the buzzwords, and build a strong data foundation. Without better ways to extract, contextualize and make industrial data useful, AI innovation within Norway’s largest, biggest impact industries will have no fuel.
We need to undertake the steps of liberating the data, connecting it together, building a foundation for advanced analytics and AI so we can ultimately reimagine how minds and machines work together. I think it’s important for us to take in the full picture of what’s happening out there in the industries: We are living through the first stages of probably the largest transformation of industry in history. Economically, geographically, technologically,
this is the biggest leap we’ll make in our lifetimes when it comes to the asset-intensive industries that power our lives. This is bigger in terms of the global capital being teed up, in terms of the number of people potentially impacted, the way it’ll shape our environment, and in terms of the opportunity cost for those who do not put themselves at the forefront of this change. It’s important that we look at this with a really, really wide lens. Most importantly, at our fingertips we have data and technology that can define the next decade for our societies, industries and most importantly, for our planet. There’s no green future with a red bottom line.
AI and broader innovations in technology, powered by data, will not only bridge the gap between legacy and new industries – it will also accelerate the development of more sustainable and renewable energy. And it can do it while maintaining the profitability of the companies making the biggest, hopefully greenest bets. So now more than ever it’s important for Norwegian companies to invest in their data foundation, in liberating data from the silos and making it available for mass AI applications that we’ve just started to scratch the surface of. These investments and sense of urgency is not only crucial for the transformation of the Norwegian industries. They are equally important for the transformation of Norway.
We have an opportunity to define the next decade for Norway.
But Norway’s leadership -- in terms of climate, in terms of technology, and specifically in AI
innovation, depends on the successful data-driven transformation of our legacy industries.
I know that many of the people involved today are - and will continue to play pivotal roles in this transformation to come