Siemens and AWS Collaborate to Democratize Generative AI in Software Development

By Brian K. Neal

Siemens and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are deepening their collaboration to facilitate the development and expansion of generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications across diverse industries and business sizes. Experts in fields such as engineering, manufacturing, logistics, insurance, and banking can now seamlessly create new or enhance existing applications using cutting-edge generative AI technology. Siemens is integrating Amazon Bedrock, a service that provides a variety of high-performing foundation models from leading AI companies through a single API, with Mendix, the prominent low-code platform within the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio, to enable this capability.

Roland Busch, Siemens’ CEO, emphasized, “By incorporating Amazon Bedrock into our low-code platform, we are democratizing generative AI technology, empowering individuals to develop applications that enhance competitiveness, resilience, and sustainability. This streamlining of application development accelerates innovation, addressing skilled labor shortages.”

Adam Selipsky, AWS CEO, echoed the sentiment, stating, “Together, AWS and Siemens empower global companies to harness the potential of generative AI, offering a flexible, secure environment across all industries. This partnership builds upon our decade-long collaboration with Siemens, providing customers with the adaptability needed to capitalize on generative AI’s new opportunities.”

The collaboration facilitates the selection of the most suitable generative AI model for specific use cases, enabling swift and secure incorporation into applications. Unlike previous methods requiring access credentials and specialized coding, the Mendix-Amazon Bedrock integration simplifies the process, allowing teams to create sophisticated, industry-specific applications with minimal programming expertise. Users can interact with information through a graphical interface, utilizing drag-and-drop commands.

This innovation empowers Mendix customers to leverage generative AI to enhance workforce productivity. For example, factory workers can expedite the retrieval of machine documentation, and production engineers can receive AI-generated suggestions for machine adjustments, maintenance, or spare parts, optimizing productivity without the need for dedicated programming skills.

Companies benefit from not having to build their AI infrastructure, ensuring data security and privacy while maintaining full control over their data. Generative AI technology enhances applications by summarizing technical or legal documents, translating content, recognizing images, and automating tasks such as fraud detection in financial software or quality improvement in manufacturing.

With access to foundational models on Amazon Bedrock, users can effortlessly select and integrate the most suitable model for their specific tasks, fostering simplicity, speed, and efficiency. The partnership expands on the established collaboration between AWS and Siemens, aiming to seamlessly integrate IT and cloud technology into applications and machine workflows.

Presently, over 50 million end users globally work with more than 200,000 applications built on Mendix’s low-code platform, a part of Siemens Xcelerator. The expected substantial growth of low-code platforms in the coming years enables developers to create applications quickly and efficiently, utilizing reusable components and software building blocks.

Amazon Bedrock, a fully managed service, provides easy access to industry-leading large language models and foundation models from various AI companies, supporting the development of generative AI applications while ensuring privacy and security. The Mendix-Amazon Bedrock integration complements AWS’s other generative AI services, extending the advantages of generative AI to developers and enterprise users, regardless of their programming expertise.