Report by CEO Roland Busch at the Annual General Meeting 2024
Thank you, Werner. From me, as well, and on behalf of the entire Managing Board, our warm greetings to the Chairman of our Supervisory Board. Tim, it would have been great to have you here with us today at the headquarters in Munich. Our heartfelt wishes to you for a speedy recovery. I'd like to warmly welcome all of you to the Siemens Annual Shareholders' Meeting! Today, I'll be introducing you to Danny. Danny supports my colleagues, can draw on decades of experience, is a strong communicator, is extremely helpful, listens well, and responds extraordinarily quickly.
Yet, Danny shows little emotion. For all we know, he has no emotions. That's because Danny isn't human: rather, he's artificial intelligence — AI.
So, before we take a look at our business figures for the past fiscal year, I'd first like to show you exactly how this AI is helping us. But, just this much in advance: 2023 was a record year for Siemens — our third record year in a row. Because Siemens stands for growth: strong growth, and sustainable growth. This growth also has to do with new technologies such as artificial intelligence. And that's exactly what brings us to Danny. Danny, by the way, is the nickname of our AI Copilot who supports us and our customers to — among other tasks — program robots and get them up and running.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to do now, live, right here at this Annual Shareholders’ Meeting. My colleague Armin Hadzalic has already made friends with Danny. Welcome, Armin! Hi, Roland. Hello, hi, Armin. So, what do you have in store for us in the next half hour? Well, I have indeed decided to commission a robot right before your very eyes.
The robot should then move parts from left to right. Now, you may say — that's old hat, we've all seen that before. But here's the thing: our robot has never seen these parts before. That means they're completely new to him. He has to immediately interact with his surrounding environment right from the start.
And that's what's novel here. What exactly am I going to do? Well, perhaps it's best to think of this as like buying a new set of shelves from IKEA, for example. The whole thing is delivered as a flat pack. You unpack everything, put the screws on one side, the shelf parts on the other, and hopefully there are instructions somewhere in the messy pile. It's all very complicated and, ultimately, you might even have to set it up all by yourself.
I'm going to do something similar: I'm going to assemble things too. Not furniture parts, though, but rather software — software components, libraries that I will put together. And the good news here is: I'm actually not alone. I've got support, AI support — from our Industrial Copilot. I've got Danny. And how does the Copilot help you with all that, exactly? I can show how with just one very small example.
Basically, it's really quite simple. I ask Danny a question, roughly speaking a question about a construction plan called an automated machine learning file — AML for short. I don't know what it is and ask Danny accordingly in natural language. Danny responds by telling me what needs to be done, practically taking me step by step through the process. And the interesting thing about all
this is that he not only provides step-by-step instructions, but also activates other software. So, I hope we'll see the end result in half an hour. Great, and, Armin, we wish you success — thank you. And of course: this is an experiment — one without any tricks or safety net. We're excited to see what happens. Now, while it all sounds so harmless — DIY from IKEA and assembling the kit while chatting briefly with Danny — in actual fact, this is a huge lever for our customers and for Siemens.
Sure, if Armin takes the time needed, he can get a robot up and running even without the help of AI. Armin can do that. But we all face a shortage of people like Armin — the highly qualified specialists. With AI, however, with the help of Danny, colleagues with less experience will in future also be able to repurpose factories and commission robots. They can talk to the machine as if it were a human being.
This is a prime example of what makes us so strong at Siemens: technology. Technology is the most powerful tool we have for improving our lives. Yet, we must also use it wisely, in the right ways. And this is what motivates us! We develop technology that improves the everyday lives of everyone: machines and processes that help people efficiently achieve more with fewer resources; innovations that help us save energy and combat climate change; sustainable infrastructure that makes it easier for us to get from A to B; and systems for diagnosing diseases more quickly, accurately and more affordably. That's been our way right from the start. Siemens grew up proffering a groundbreaking basic technology: electrical engineering.
Taming the phenomenon of electricity, and harnessing it for human use. This marked a great leap forward which we've built on ever since, launching our continuous growth for over 176 years: electric trams, power plants, electric motors, household appliances and electrical circuits — all this has improved the everyday lives of billions of people, everywhere. And this growth continues. Today, in 2024, the world has a new, groundbreaking basic technology at hand: artificial intelligence — or, more precisely: generative artificial intelligence. It's the start of a whole new growth curve, just like it was back then with electrical engineering.
We've been using AI for a long time. But now, together with our customers, we're introducing AI on a grand scale — to factories, power grids, hospitals and trains. No company is as well positioned as we are when it comes to applying AI in the real world and making it useful — and we're doing so in all of our markets. Using AI wisely and correctly is the single most significant opportunity for our generation and future generations. And it's a huge opportunity for Siemens. You recall our strategy, summed up in a single sentence: Siemens combines the real and digital worlds.
And with AI, we can now do this even better! Yet, a strategy must of course also translate into economic success — into growth, and growth for you, the owners of Siemens. Here are the numbers, expressed as always on a comparable basis. Fiscal 2023 was another record year — our third in a row. We were more profitable than ever before.
Our industrial businesses posted a profit of €11.4 billion and a profit margin of 15.4% — stronger than ever before. Net income nearly doubled to €8.5 billion, which is also a record figure. Free cash flow exceeded €10 billion for the first time ever — 23% higher than in fiscal 2022. Revenue grew 11%.
Since spinning off Siemens Energy, we've increased our revenue from €55 billion in 2020 to €78 billion. Orders were up 7% to €92 billion, and our order backlog grew to €111 billion — another record. Now, all this, of course, should pay off for you. We promised you a progressive dividend policy, and we're keeping our word. We are proposing to increase the dividend by a good 10%, by 45 eurocents to €4.70. And if you’re pleased with all these results, you’re not alone: our shares are in high demand, reaching an all-time share-price high of €170 in December.
Siemens is now one of the top 100 most valuable companies in the world. Yet, what makes me especially proud is that we achieved these strong results in a year that was anything but easy: an ongoing war in Europe, inflation and high interest rates still at relatively high levels, and weak economies in Germany and China. And yet: Siemens is growing.
Siemens is growing strongly. And Siemens is growing sustainably. The success of Siemens is the success of my 320,000 colleagues. I'd like to thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart. You've achieved something quite special in a difficult year.
Siemens is well positioned and broadly diversified, with various businesses and customers in various industries throughout the entire world. We utilize our technologies across the full breadth of this spectrum. This approach is efficient. It strengthens us. It makes Siemens a robust and resilient company, and it boosts our growth. So what's the outlook? We expect profitable growth in this fiscal year as well.
We expect to see revenue growth of anywhere from 4 to 8%. Let's look at the basic earnings per share, the undiluted result, as you know it from the annual forecast. We expect an increase in the range of €10.40 to €11 per share.
And we've made a successful start to this new financial year in the first quarter. In other words: growth today with technologies that the world needs. Yet, what's just as important to you: growth tomorrow — with new technologies in strongly growing markets.
Let's take the example of battery manufacturing. I was in Sweden last April and visited one of Northvolt's gigafactories: a truly enormous production plant, one of the largest lithium-ion battery factories anywhere. The plant is currently as big as 70 soccer fields — and it's still growing. During the tour, the factory manager explained Northvolt's goal: to product the world's greenest battery. Northvolt has already succeeded in slashing the carbon footprint of many battery types by two-thirds. Siemens supports Northvolt with a broad range of products and services. Our
digital twins help Northvolt design their batteries as well as their manufacturing plants. Our automation solutions control production. Our building technology ensures a pleasant climate in their facility interiors. Our fire
protection technology helps prevent disasters. We ensure that electricity flows reliably. Our consulting teams make systems and processes even more efficient. And we've even invested in Northvolt. No other company can offer all of this from a single source. And that's also why we're so strongly in business — not only with Northvolt, by the way, but also with other major battery manufacturers in Asia and Europe.
The fact is, Siemens is simply more — much more — than the sum of its parts. Siemens is not just a technology company: Siemens is one technology company. Working together, our various businesses jointly drive Siemens' success. Another example is the market for data centers. This global market will grow worldwide by around 10% per year until 2030.
Some three dozen data centers are currently being built in the U.S. city of Mesa near Phoenix. There, in the Arizona desert, among the cacti and coyotes, is where artificial intelligence is at work, so to speak. This is because ChatGPT and all the other language models operate in the cloud, decentralized in data centers. The many servers need electricity, of course, for which we supply complete electrical installations: low- and medium-voltage systems, switchgear, power distribution and fire protection systems. And this is where we come full circle.
Microsoft is our customer for particularly efficient and fail-safe power supply systems for data centers. And, together with Microsoft, we build AI solutions that we and our customers use. Last October I met with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in Berlin. There, we spoke about our collaboration. Listen for a moment to what he said.
For us, if you look at all of this generative AI push, at the end of the day, the big constraint is always going to be green energy for our data centers. And so, in fact, we are big customers of yours and big partners there. So, we are really making sure that we have the right, for us, upstream supply chain that allows us to meet our commitments to be able to deliver what I think can be the biggest breakthroughs of productivity downstream when it comes back. So, it's a sort of circular side where you help us produce more AI with green supply chain so that you can then produce more industrial solutions.
Yes, Siemens is a strong tech company, with strong partners. Our overall company performance is what counts, of course. Nevertheless, we've once again broken down our figures for you by business segment so that you can track our progress year on year. Let's take a look at Digital Industries first.
The business delivered three new records, achieving 15% growth, a 22.6% profit margin and €4.2 billion in free cash flow. The transition to software as a service is making progress. The latest figures show that around 12,600 customers are now using these services, including many small and medium-sized enterprises. Smart Infrastructure saw 15% growth in revenue last year with a 15.4% profit margin and free cash flow of €2.9 billion.
Those are three new records set by Smart Infrastructure as well. And, by the way: over the past 13 quarters, we've been able to increase our margin every time, year on year. Strong figures at Mobility, too: revenue was up 15%, and the profit margin was at 8.4% — well above our competitors. Mobility increased its free cash flow by around 36% to over €1 billion.
And its order intake exceeded €20 billion for the first time. Where is this growth in our rail business coming from? From India, among other places. The state railway company ordered 1,200 electric locomotives from us for freight transport. This is the largest locomotive order in our history — worth €3 billion. Over time, these locomotives can replace up to 800,000 trucks. The contract also includes full-service maintenance for a period of 35 years, for which we will use our open digital platform Railigent X — which, of course, also utilizes AI.
And, incidentally, we'll certainly be talking more often about India in the coming years: a nation with 1.4 billion people, strong economic growth, and making huge investments in infrastructure. What can the country use from Siemens' portfolio? Practically everything.
Strong orders are also coming in from Germany. We will build 90 trains for the Munich S-Bahn commuter rail system, for €2 billion. One exciting development: updates to the trains' operating software will no longer have to be installed manually at the depot.
Instead, it will all be done via the cloud. We've concluded a long-term software maintenance contract running until 2034. As for Siemens Healthineers, the company is and will remain an innovation leader. It has virtually reinvented magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI for short. The latest generation of scanners are now more compact, use fewer resources, and are less expensive, making them affordable for emerging and developing countries. Conventional scanners require 1,000 liters of liquid helium for cooling during operation.
This coolant alone costs up to €50,000, and cooling consumes a considerable amount of electricity, as well. Our new design needs only one liter of coolant. And with its advanced algorithms and AI, this new MRI scanner produces images of the same quality as a conventional device, but with just one third of the magnetic field strength.
This is why Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded my colleagues at Siemens Healthineers the German Future Prize. Hearty congratulations to you all! Powerful innovations, strong figures. Revenue also grew at Siemens Healthineers.
Their business with Covid-19 rapid tests has been discontinued. So, to make the relevant revenue development data comparable, we have excluded that component from this analysis. Comparable revenue growth was thus over 8%, and the profit margin was 11.7%. So, those were four examples: resource-saving and affordable magnetic resonance imaging, locomotives in India, data centers in the United States, and battery production in Sweden.
Four examples of how Siemens is growing. Four examples of how we're creating technology to transform the everyday lives of everyone. Yet, these four examples also show that Siemens is a single strong united team. You see how our businesses work together.
You see how other world-class companies are building partnerships with us — partnering with Siemens on equal terms. You see how our core areas of expertise in digital technologies and artificial intelligence benefit all our businesses. You see that Siemens has the technologies the world needs, both today and tomorrow: hardware and software, electrification and automation, valuable data and artificial intelligence — but also the experience and industry knowledge to use new technologies wisely and correctly.
Siemens combines the real world and the digital worlds. And that is exactly what our future growth will be about — for you, and for us. We're gearing our entire company towards this future. How are we doing this? The answer: with Siemens Xcelerator, our open digital business platform, where our customers can find everything they need for their own digital transformation and for achieving their sustainability targets. This platform includes an open digital marketplace where our partners, too, can contribute their technologies, products, solutions and services.
We're also seeing this success in our revenue: with Siemens Xcelerator, our software and digital service business grew across the entire portfolio. Revenue amounted to €7.3 billion — an increase of 12%.
We're of course also aligning our portfolio with our strategy. With Innomotics, we've launched a world-class champion for motors and large drives as a new brand. The company now stands on its own two feet, and we want to take it public or find a new, better owner — one with whom the business is really a good fit.
We further reduced our stake in Siemens Energy, and will continue this process. With the acquisition of Heliox, we're strengthening our e-mobility portfolio. Heliox is the technology leader in fast-charging solutions for electric buses and trucks. BuntPlanet is another of our acquisitions. The company offers AI-powered solutions for water suppliers. Combining them together with our hardware, our customers can identify water losses in their networks even earlier and further reduce them.
Siemens is growing. Siemens is growing strongly. Siemens is growing sustainably. Record results for the last three years.
You're probably asking: what's next? Well, for the share price, for the value of your company, what counts is future growth — not yesterday's growth. So, where will this growth come from? And how will the world we live in continue to develop? This year will once again be an unusually difficult one for investors. While new technologies like AI awaken people's interest in investing, global political conflicts and higher interest rates are dampening optimism — so, do you step on the gas pedal, hit the brakes, or both? When I look at Siemens — at our history and our current position in the market — I am confident. We seize the opportunities in good times, and we successfully weather the storms. We have a broadly diverse lineup, and that strengthens us when the global economy is not doing so well. We have strong cash flows, and strong, long-lasting customer relationships.
And we have a strong global team. Siemens is growing on a long-term track because we've geared our portfolio to long-term trends: climate change, urbanization, demographic change, glocalization, and one trend that's accelerating everything: digitalization. We have the technologies that the world needs. To keep it that way, we're investing heavily in research and development: €6.2 billion in the past fiscal year alone. More than 1,500 AI experts work at Siemens.
And when it comes to patents for machine learning and AI, we're on a par with the largest tech companies worldwide, such as Microsoft and Alphabet. We publish around ten times as many patents in these fields as our traditional industrial competitors. Ten times as many! So, now, it's all about what we do with them: how we turn these good ideas into products, into solutions, into real added value for our customers. Doing so, however, also requires investments in the real world — where markets are growing, where new opportunities are emerging. That's why we announced some huge investments last year more than €2 billion for innovation centers, for training centers, for digital manufacturing, and for resilient and profitable growth.
Among other efforts, we're building a high-tech automation factory in Singapore, and we're expanding a production plant in China. In the United Sates, we're building a manufacturing plant for locomotives as well as a factory for high-tech products for electrical infrastructure — and to fulfill orders for those new data centers in Arizona. And we're also placing our bets on Germany as a business location. Yes, Germany faces challenges.
But the country also has a lot to offer. There are established, successful ecosystems here, such as automotive, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and medical technology, and very strong small and medium-sized companies. We invest in Germany because we believe in the country's innovative strength and inventive spirit.
And I'd like to state loud and clear: extremism of any kind hurts this country. Prosperity is based on progress and innovation, on sharing information and ideas and openness, on diversity and dependability — and, above all, on creative people and committed people. And this naturally includes all those who come to Germany and want to contribute themselves and their skills. Siemens is investing €1 billion in Germany, including for a new high-tech campus in Erlangen. Incidentally, numerous teams are also working there on the industrial metaverse.
We've recently been hearing this term more and more often. What exactly is the industrial metaverse? Well, it's a place for industrial innovation. It combines the real and the digital worlds: a virtual, photorealistic space where people and AI can work together in real time and solve real problems. With generative AI and the industrial metaverse, building and using technology becomes easier and faster. A fantastical vision, you think? The fact is, we've long had the most important building blocks needed for the industrial metaverse, and you can find them on Siemens Xcelerator: digital twins, software-defined automation, data and AI.
Let's take a closer look at these three important building blocks, one by one. Firstly, what exactly is a digital twin? Digital twins replicate the real world — not only in shapes and colors, but also the physical reality. How does an object behave when the temperature rises? What happens if I shake it? But also: how does an entire factory and all its machinery respond when I run a software update? With the help of digital twins, I can test all these things before changing anything in the real world. That might all sound rather abstract.
So, to explain this more clearly, I've invited Velia Janetzky to join us. She works for us in Erlangen, where she builds pilot applications for the industrial metaverse. Welcome, Velia! Hello, Roland. So nice of you to join us. Hi! As noted, a €500 million investment in Erlangen, at F80. What are we doing there exactly? At our Erlangen facility located at Frauenauracher Strasse 80 — hence the F80, for short — we produce electronics to get industry moving.
So, if control systems are the brains of the machines, then we produce the motors — the muscles of the machinery. These include variable frequency drives, CNC controls and drive controls. And we're already today demonstrating how the Industrial metaverse works in factories. Okay, that means we also build these parts, which we later sell in Siemens Xcelerator.
What technologies do we use? It's currently all about bringing together the core technologies that we need, which means making the data from our processes available, and rendering these data usable — including for artificial intelligence — and then combining these technologies and much more with the digital twins. Okay, so let's ask a sneaky back-door question: what exactly does that bring us? That was mentioned earlier: we want to produce the new generation of products at our factory very soon, the new Xcelerator-compatible product generation. To do this, we have to replan our entire production area — that's hundreds of machines over an unbelievably big floorspace.
And we want to be absolutely certain when we start moving the real machines around that we actually place them exactly where we need them, and that our planning is fully successful. The digital twin — meaning the highly precise replicate image of all these machines and the entire production area — helps us plan and optimize everything virtually beforehand. You must mention, too, that it's already fully automated, with lots of robots. You add a whole new dimension. Do you have another example? You visited us last summer and can well recall the manufacturing system where a whole lot of robots work together non-stop fully automatically 24 hours a day to assemble our products. And then it can happen that you arrive at the factory one morning after the night shift only to discover that, okay, the system produced only 400 variable frequency drives and not the planned 500. How do you now figure out what actually caused that deviation? You can talk to your colleagues who worked the night shift. You can analyze countless
databases — and in a worst-case scenario, it may take hours or even days until you're really able to identify the problem. In the industrial metaverse, we have all the information we need to be able to quickly identify deviations — all in one place, available to everyone. And that's almost as if you could jump back in time to when the deviation first occurred.
And now, perhaps, give us a look ahead to the future. I don't think you're doing this all alone, are you? Absolutely not. As a factory, we ourselves benefit from the software solutions offered on the Xcelerator — Siemens Xcelerator. We collaborate very closely with lots of motivated colleagues across the entire Siemens Group.
And we also rely heavily on partners such as Amazon Webservice for our data, and on the company Nvidia when it comes to our digital twins. Strong partnerships on the shop floor. So, this mission: how have you, personally, benefited from this work? How have you grown with these tasks? You might notice it a bit: I'm motivated when it comes to innovative technologies. And then sometimes you tend to use technology simply for technology's sake. The last two years at Siemens, especially at the production plant, have taught me to focus on results first. What do we use the technology for? What do we want to do with it? Where does this benefit us and the customer? And, ultimately: how does it make our lives a little bit better? Your enthusiasm is there for all to see: for technology that benefits people.
Thank you, Velia. Best of luck, and we wish you every success. Thanks very much. It's hard to believe how much we can achieve through simulation and digital twins. But, ultimately, it's all about transforming the real world for the better. Whatever we develop, we must also be able to produce it. And that brings us to the second aspect of the industrial metaverse: software-defined automation.
This concept also sounds rather abstract — but it has a huge impact in the real world. Worldwide, one out of every three machines runs on Siemens control systems, so-called programmable logic controllers, or PLCs for short. These are little boxes containing software and hardware — miniature brains, so to speak, that are distributed throughout a factory. They tell the machines what to do, millisecond by millisecond. We're now virtualizing these controllers, these mini-brains. What does this mean in concrete terms? We separate the hardware from the software.
We gather up the many virtual mini-brains, removing them from the actual machines, and bring them all together in a small local cloud, a central data center — which, by the way, could be located ten kilometers away, yet production can be controlled in real time, millisecond by millisecond. This approach offers many advantages for our customers. Need to ramp up production? With just a couple of mouse clicks, our customers will in future be able to add virtual controls. Software updates? No problem. Rather than updating each
machine and system separately, it can all be done remotely. Want to reprogram your machines? In future, you won't even have to learn a special programming language, or leave the data center. Our customer Audi has already been working with these innovative virtual PLCs for several weeks now. Incidentally, such controllers are needed not only in factories, but everywhere machines are used, such as in power grids, office buildings, and trains. Customers from all of these sectors will in future be able to order and set up controllers online.
Where? Via Siemens Xcelerator, of course, which also offers features that make setup and operation easier with the use of AI. And that brings us to the third important aspect of the industrial metaverse: artificial intelligence and data, in particular generative artificial intelligence. We aren't building the industrial metaverse on our own. After all, the Internet wasn't created by a single company, either. Partnerships are crucial to our success in this regard. We are part of numerous ecosystems.
We give, we take, we grow with our partners and with our customers. Velia did a great job of explaining this earlier. We're working with the company Nvidia, for example, on photorealistic visualizations for the industrial metaverse. Together with Amazon Web Services, we're making it even easier to incorporate AI into computer programs and apps.
With our partner ESRI, we're building digital twins of power grids. ESRI has the geodata, while we contribute the simulation software from Siemens Xcelerator. This combination makes it easier for our customers to plan, operate and maintain their grids, and integrate renewable energy feed-in to the power grid. Together with Microsoft, we designed and built the Industrial Copilot that Armin is currently working with. The industrial metaverse is not just a vision.
We're building it — today. And our customers are already using many of its components. Heineken, for example, uses digital twins to reduce CO2 emissions in its production. CO2 belongs in beer, of course — it's what makes beer sparkling and frothy. But we want CO2 in the glass — not in the atmosphere.
Siemens provides comprehensive support for Heineken's decarbonization program. The goal for next year is to cut CO2 emissions by half at more than 15 production sites. With the help of a digital twin, we simulated the production sites' energy flows.
As a result, it quickly became clear what changes would bring the most benefit — such as the use of heat pumps, for example. Investments in digital transformation. Investments in sustainability: more than 90% of our business enables our customers to achieve positive sustainability impacts. Hydrogen-powered trains are another example. This year, we will be delivering nine hydrogen-powered trains.
The main market is Europe, where 15,000 diesel-powered trains are currently in service — which all are to be replaced by hydrogen and battery trains by 2040. We offer both, so there's potential for strong growth in this sector. Our customers don't just want to reduce their own CO2 emissions: they're now taking a closer look at upstream products — that is, at emissions across the entire supply chain. Last year, I presented our SiGREEN solution for monitoring all these data.
We've meanwhile already won over 300 customers. "Together for Sustainability"— a sustainability initiative in the chemical industry — has opted for a pilot project utilizing SiGREEN. Fifty-one companies are taking part in this initiative. Last year we also founded the joint venture Cofinity-X with numerous automotive companies and suppliers. Cofinity-X, which also makes use of SiGREEN, is building a platform on which data can be shared securely and efficiently. BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen, SAP, BASF, Henkel, ZF and Schaeffler — among other companies — are all part of this joint venture.
We're also using SiGREEN and other tools for a new Siemens product we're currently developing: the digital battery passport. As of 2027, all electric vehicles sold in the EU will require such a passport. Where does the battery come from? How much recycled material does it contain? Can it be recycled? How much CO2 was emitted during its production? By the way, you can also find SiGREEN directly in the Siemens Xcelerator marketplace. That's also where you can find the Siemens Industrial Copilot that Armin is currently working with. Now, however, it's high time to pay him and Danny a visit.
Good news. So, Armin, how's it going? Did it work? Yes, the robot is doing its job, moving the parts from left to right, and also recognizes them. He'd never seen them before. In this respect... Whew! That part works. The IKEA part worked.
Exactly. You created a program with AI that would otherwise have taken much longer and required more skills. And he's doing his job. That's right. So, and... I've brought you something. You brought me something. The challenge is that
they are now standard parts. Let's see if he can sort the others as well. I think that's the plan now. That's right, I hope that works. We have large parts here.
Here are a few more rubber ducklings. Yes. Maybe wait a bit until our... otherwise, he'll take both with him at once. That's of course not what we want.
That's wonderful. But it works! That's right. That's great. Now he's slowed down. Danny, why did you slow down? The robot's speed has been reduced because a human is in the safety zone.
Please take a step back. Okay. It looks good. The path worked too. Great, I'm relieved.
So here we have... We're sorting parts from Schaeffler here, and we also have a customer joining us: Stefan Gahabka. Welcome! Hello, Roland. Hi, hello! Schaeffler — a great company. We've worked together for many years.
And now we're taking this collaboration to a new level, with new technology. Tell me a bit about it. First of all, thanks to both of you for inviting me.
I'm really pleased to be here today. What's driving us right now? What's motivating us? We sense that certain changes are in the air. Not just us: our customers, all of us. I think you've already touched on some of these topics. Our focus is clearly on electric mobility, which has now taken hold over the years.
What is changing for us? Our product portfolio: it's becoming broader, deeper, and more complex. These complex products require innovative automation solutions and adapted manufacturing concepts, right through to the machinery we operate and also manufacture. What does it take for that? Qualified employees across all levels, from the shop floor to the development areas. We want to provide our employees with the right tools — they are our focus, that is very important — tools and equipment that make their work easier and more efficient.
The Copilot could in future be just such a solution. So, big challenges: introduce new technologies quickly on the one hand, while also training people in these new technologies. Where do you do that? We've chosen two topics, two use cases: the shop floor, which you have just presented to perfection yourself by acting and reacting with Copilot, with the machine, and perhaps even gaining back a problem-solving strategy in the event of a future error. The second use case is that of engineering, where we are looking precisely at automation: that AI can help us, as Armin has just shown, to simply become faster and more efficient. When it comes to complex topics — and this is very clear, I would also like to stress this — we need expert knowledge, our employees do: without such expertise, it's not possible. We are currently in the process of finding the right use case on our shop floor in order to bring it to life.
And I've now brought us a video with which we can gain a picture of where we can get help from AI in future. This is a machine at our production plant in Momo, Italy, where we see robotic operations for handling water pump bearings. Very nice. Watch the movie. Thank you Stefan. And thank you — well done, Armin. It's really impressive what the team has achieved together with Schaeffler.
But Danny also demands quite a lot from us as well. We first have to clear a hurdle by overcoming our fear. Will AI rob us of our work? Armin and Stefan have shown us that AI helps us solve difficult tasks.
It supports our efforts to further develop ourselves. It thereby helps us to grow. At Siemens, we call this a growth mindset. Velia and Armin, my colleagues, can achieve more and learn new things with the help of AI. At Siemens, everyone is learning — every day. In fiscal 2023, we invested more than €400 million in training and continuing education for our colleagues.
Almost 40,000 of our employees took part in AI training courses, for example. This is a topic that affects every one of us. Whether we work in a factory or in an office — in the end, our colleagues are all asking similar questions: what does AI mean for me? How does AI help me with my work? How do I deal responsibly with the risks involved? In particular the colleagues in our factories are making increasing use of our training and learning opportunities. In fiscal 2023, the share of participants nearly doubled compared to the prior year. So, it's not just revenue and profits that are growing at Siemens: people are growing here as well.
And, by the way, we are investing in future talents, even if they aren't yet working for us. Take Khady Diouf, for example. She is 21 years old and about to complete her computer science studies. She lives in Dakar, Senegal, and is taking part in the "African Girls Can Code" program”.
Six hundred young women from the region can choose from various courses offered, which include computer animation, robotics, 3D printing and programming. Siemens provided almost €800,000 in funding as well as laptop computers for the program, one of which went to Khady. As she puts it, "This is a huge opportunity for me. With the help of Siemens, I'm currently learning even more about cybersecurity. It will help me when I start working." This is the growth that I mean.
We must never forget that economic growth is not an end in itself. Growth serves us humans. Growth is healthy when it conserves and protects the environment. Growth is healthy when it helps us transform everyday life for everyone.
Growth is healthy when we achieve it sensibly, fairly and honestly. These are the benchmarks by which we measure ourselves at Siemens. High ethical standards, high compliance standards, and high demands for our own sustainability. And there are no half-hearted compromises. I have talked to you about our DEGREE sustainability framework over the past few years.
It sets clear, quantifiable goals. Two major successes: we've already increased the share of women in top management positions to over 30% — and have done so two years ahead of schedule. We've already cut our own CO2 emissions by half since 2019. We expect to reach 90% by 2030. Just a few days ago, the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) — an independent climate protection program — awarded us its top rating in recognition of this success.
Today, you met Velia, Armin, Stefan and Khady. All of them stand for growth. Khady is preparing for her career.
Velia is using new technologies with a sharpened focus on benefits and profit. Armin and Stefan are helping their colleagues do things that previously required years of training. And, by the way, Danny is also growing: the AI Copilot is learning something with each new task — but only when humans guide him. Growth.
This is what Siemens stands for. Healthy growth. Strong growth. Sustainable growth. Growth today with our record-setting performance. And growth tomorrow with technologies the world needs.
Thank you.
2024-02-15 19:32
