Edison Next bets on AI in industry to address sustainability

Less than 100 years ago, Alan Turing published “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” considered by many to be the origin of artificial intelligence. In 2016, Google’s Alpha Go AI software faced off against South Korean Go world champion Se-Dol and won. Now, the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, a freely accessible program capable of providing reasoned answers to user questions, has put Artificial Intelligence in the spotlight. However, in Spain, only 53% think that products and services using artificial intelligence have more advantages than disadvantages, and half of Spanish companies do not use artificial intelligence nor plan to. Likewise, according to an IBM study, 80% of Spanish workers believe that employees lack the necessary skills, especially in areas such as Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and process automation. At this point, the shortage of tech profiles poses a threat to innovation and growth. Therefore, within the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, one of its axes is dedicated to promoting the development of digital skills, aiming to provide all means to ensure that workers have adequate mastery of digital skills, as well as the abilities to understand and develop Artificial Intelligence technologies and applications. In the case of industry, the implementation of IoT is scarce and faces great resistance due to a lack of skills, technical difficulties, and limited resources. The digital leap is dizzying, due to the comprehensive transformation of our environment and, in turn, the way we produce. The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism (Mincotur) itself is aware of the situation. “In Spain, currently, the pace of digitalization implementation in industry is progressive but slow. Only 30% of companies are at an advanced level of the implementation phase, while the remaining 70% are at a low or medium implementation level,” says Jordi Llinares, Deputy Director General for Digitalization of Industry and Collaborative Environments at Mincotur. In many cases, this type of project leads to an unsuccessful search for collaborators, resources, and budget. In this regard, at Edison Next we have been committed for years to integrating cutting-edge technologies into our solutions, including Artificial Intelligence. For our first project, the company sought an ally within the food sector, one of the leading sectors in innovation and development. And, as on other occasions, we turned to Pascual, a pioneering group in Spain that introduced tetra brik packaging and ultra-pasteurization. An artificial intelligence project typically involves many steps. From data collection and preprocessing, selecting the appropriate AI model, and subsequent training and evaluation; through model refinement and ending with its implementation. However, in many cases, the initial path leads nowhere, and results in R&D&I projects are not achieved. In that specific project, the circle was closed thanks to aid from the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union through RED.ES., a Public Business Entity whose functions are to promote and develop the Digital Agenda. Thanks to this, we now have a platform that can connect to the IoT system of an industrial plant and develop and implement different Artificial Intelligence models and algorithms in a minimum amount of time. A whole journey, where the important thing has been having a team specialized in the industrial environment, the right allies, and the perseverance to resolve setbacks. Producing intelligently and connected opens new doors for our industry in a global market. But, to be more competitive, efficient, and sustainable, it is necessary to apply enabling technologies such as cloud computing, big data, or Machine Learning. For all these reasons, trusting Edison Next for this type of project provides a clear advantage due to the path already traveled, allowing us to enter through the front door into this new paradigm in which our industry will produce more, better, cleanly, and saving costs.