DATA-DRIVEN INSIGHTS
HOW AI IS TRANSFORMING INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES Heiko Petersen and Patrick Meade Vargas - ABB Process Automation, and Ruomu Tan - ABB Corporate Research Process Automation
Although most of the underlying mathematics of control systems stems from the 1960s, it has only recently become feasible to apply some algorithms in real time.
PROCESS TECHNOLOGY AUG/SEP 2025
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owadays, artificial intelligence (AI) seems omnipresent. It is a common topic of conversation, bookstores are flooded with literature about it, and few applications seem to do without it. But considering the sheer amount of hype, one may wonder why AI is still so seldom used in the process industries. Or could it perhaps be that it is already used, but just not recognised as such? Generally, a system is considered to be AI-driven when it performs tasks typically done by humans, such as visual perception, decision making, speech recognition, and translation. As a matter of fact, AI-driven systems can outperform humans in a range of activities such as solving numerical problems, pattern recognition, and retrieving information from a massive number of
sources. Nevertheless, such systems are still in their infancy when it comes to abstract reasoning, social interactions, consciousness, or self-awareness, all of which are routine for humans but out of reach for machines — at least so far. In view of this, it is important to distinguish between different levels of AI. According to Kaplan and Haenlein1, the evolution of AI can be divided into three stages: 1. Artificial narrow intelligence: the application of AI to specified tasks. 2. Artificial general intelligence: the application of AI to autonomously solve novel problems in multiple fields. 3. Artificial super intelligence: the application of AI to any area that can benefit from scientific creativity, social skills and general wisdom.
Most of today’s AI solutions fall into the first category. In this sense, even James Watt’s flyball governor, a speed regulator for his rotary steam engine of 1768, could be considered AI at stage one. Certainly, it was never marketed as such — and the same can be said for the millions of control solutions operating in the power, refining and chemical industries.
AI AS A SOLUTION Typically, AI systems not only consist of a brain, or in other words, a sophisticated algorithm; they also must be able to perceive and interact with the world. Vision, hearing, speaking and motion complement the brain and allow AI-based systems to solve real-world problems — tasks very similar to those encountered by process PROCESSONLINE.COM.AU