GE forges deal with Reliance Industries to fulfill industrial IoT

MUMBAI: Industrial conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) and GE have signed a global partnership agreement in the Industrial IOT (IIOT) space whereby RIL and GE will work together to build out joint applications on GE’s Predix platform. The partnership marks the coming together of two of the world’s largest industrial conglomerates to provide Industrial IOT solutions to customers in oil & gas, fertilizer, power, healthcare, telecom and other industries. The agreement was signed in the presence of Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE and Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited.

GE will provide its Predix cloud offering, Industrial Internet applications and data science expertise. RIL will develop solutions on Predix as an Independent Software Vendor (ISV), bringing to bear its over 30 years of data, process and operational expertise. RIL will also offer nationwide connectivity infrastructure to customers through a 4G network powered by Jio. GE would offer the security, availability and monitoring aspects of the platform to RIL and its customers. The potential for other revenue streams includes telecom, healthcare and agriculture.

GE indicates that the benefits to customers include driving operational efficiencies, profitability and new revenue streams by making use of data and analytics. A one per cent productivity gain for companies creates ~ USD 250 billion value over 15 years, across these key energy and infrastructure industries. The digital market is growing at a fast pace with IIOT contributing the highest degree of growth at over 10 per cent. According to Gartner, there exists a market opportunity of over USD 25 billion by 2022 for IIoT solutions across the four key industries of oil & gas, power, healthcare and transportation.

“India’s potential in driving the migration to digital is well appreciated. The partnership with Reliance Industries will shape the future of the Industrial Internet not just in India but globally. The possibilities that it opens to develop solutions on our Predix platform for the industrial sector are endless,” said Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of GE.

“India needs to rapidly move to the next level of smart manufacturing which leverages big data, algorithms, and sensor technology. The presence of ubiquitous high bandwidth connectivity and cloud services enabled by Jio will be a key enabler for the rapid growth of IIOT within India. Indians have been in the forefront of creating smart and innovative solutions in a number of fields. It’s time we brought smart manufacturing capability into India by providing value added IIOT solutions for the industry that will enable India’s economic growth,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries.