Schneider Electric will spotlight new milestones in its strategic collaboration with Microsoft at Hannover Messe, demonstrating how their combined technologies are enabling manufacturers to modernize operations, accelerate engineering, and strengthen resiliency.Schneider Electric provides the industrial execution backbone for the collaboration through EcoStruxure Automation Expert, its open, software-defined automation platform that runs consistently across on-premises, edge, and hybrid environments. Microsoft extends this foundation with Azure cloud and AI services that orchestrate, analyze, and optimize industrial processes. The result is a unified approach to agentic manufacturing, open automation, and end-to-end sustainability.
Manufacturers face increasing product variability, supply chain instability, and mounting pressure to modernize safely. Schneider Electric addresses these challenges by connecting engineering intent with real-time operational execution. Their combined platform enables teams to standardize reusable logic, validate automation through simulation, maintain traceability throughout the lifecycle, and scale interoperable operations across diverse sites and hardware.Schneider Electric is working with Microsoft to develop the next generation of agentic, software-defined manufacturing, an integrated workflow spanning design, engineering, build, commissioning, and operations.
At the core is EcoStruxure Automation Expert, which allows manufacturers to author, simulate, validate and deploy automation logic once and run it anywhere without retooling. Schneider Electric?s deep expertise in safety, compliance, and industrial integration ensures reliability in highly regulated environments. Where traditional automation programs require separate tools and handoffs at each phase ?
engineering design, simulation, commissioning, and operations, the joint platform collapses these into a single traceable workflow. Specialized AI agents, coordinated by an orchestrator, automate routine design decisions and validate logic before deployment, reducing design-to-build lead times and improving first-pass yield. Schneider Electric?s industrial copilot for manufacturers, powered by Azure AI, is already delivering results in the field: engineering teams report up to 50%-time savings on control configuration and documentation tasks, with production line changes that previously required weeks now completed in hours.
At their respective booths at Hannover Messe 2026, Schneider Electric (Hall 13, Stand C34) and Microsoft (Hall 17, Stand G06) will offer hands-on demonstrations of early-stage co-innovation capabilities, spanning live demonstrations, engineering-grade AI, and an open-standards ecosystem, as part of a growing program to advance the next generation of manufacturing.
