Amid the rise of artificial intelligence and the expansion of data centers, Siemens is pursuing a strategy in which digital twins, microgrids and cybersecurity are defining the competitiveness of Mexico’s critical infrastructure.
Across the technology ecosystem, the convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) is redefining production. In Mexico, a global manufacturing hub, this transition is accelerating. With 132 years of operations in the country, Siemens is leading the shift from automation based on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to artificial intelligence and edge computing systems.
According to Marco Cosío, Siemens’ vice president of Smart Infrastructure for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, the competitive paradigm has changed: “Industry is no longer competing solely on manufacturing costs, but on the operational intelligence that drives competitiveness by reducing time to market.” For software and network engineers, this presents challenges involving architecture, latency and data sovereignty.
A key pillar of this transformation is the digital twin. Far from being merely conceptual, real-time simulation is a mature operational solution. Cosío said it makes it possible to simulate operations using real-world variables, reducing time to market by between 20% and 25% while optimizing costs.
The technology is used in electrical systems, from assembly lines to power grids. “We can simulate electrical grids in real time to anticipate what happens if you add loads, generation, or wind and photovoltaic farms,” the executive said. At the distribution level, tools such as GridX model energy flows and integrate distributed resources quickly, an aspect that is critical for network infrastructure architects.
The boom in data centers in Mexico illustrates this trend: AI requires massive physical processing capacity, while these facilities in turn require advanced software to optimize their design and thermal operations. To ensure high availability and energy efficiency, Siemens implements building management systems (BMS) with predictive controls such as Demand Flow, which uses digital twins to optimize air conditioning, the largest source of energy consumption in a data center. This is complemented by microgrids and behind-the-meter battery energy storage systems (BESS) to shift loads. “Being able to add storage gives you the opportunity to shift the load, making the grid much more efficient,” Cosío said.
In software, industrial AI is introducing “autonomous agents” that monitor production to ensure quality and efficiency in real time. Processing this data in public clouds, however, creates cybersecurity risks. To mitigate them, Siemens prioritizes local and hybrid architectures. “Information that you put into AI outside your control becomes public,” Cosío warned. In response, the company is implementing local processing environments and private language models, such as an internal corporate GPT. “We ensure that data remains under the customer’s control, using their own servers or secure storage without sharing information with public tools,” he added.
The advance of industrial digitalization is uneven. Sectors such as automotive and food and beverage are leading technology adoption. However, the gap with small and medium-sized enterprises is significant: in Mexico’s electrical equipment sector, 20% of companies already use AI and 30% use advanced robotics, but only 8% of industrial SMEs have adopted these tools.
The challenge is not just financial but also human. Some 71% of companies identify the shortage of specialized digital talent as the main transformation risk. This is compounded by the difficulty of quantifying the return on investment (ROI) in industrial software, where the monetization of intangible operational efficiencies is often difficult to project.
For Siemens, digitalization is converging with decarbonization. Its Mitras plant in Monterrey is an example, having obtained LEED Platinum certification for energy management. Modern development requires products designed according to “Ecodesign” criteria to enable circularity. “This is not a sprint, but an endurance race to ensure sustainability for future generations,” Cosío concluded, reaffirming that the future lies in intelligent, clean and secure convergence.