JetZero will leverage the Siemens Xcelerator open digital business platform to design, manufacture, and operate its new blended wing aircraft. (Image courtesy of JetZero)
Aviation startup JetZero chooses Siemens Xcelerator platform to enable development of groundbreaking blended wing aircraft
LAS VEGAS and MUNICH—At CES 2025, Siemens demonstrated how its technologies are empowering customers to take bold leaps in industrial innovation. The technology company sketched out its vision for a future in which data, AI, and software-defined automation converge to enable new levels of flexibility, optimization, and continuous improvement across the world’s industries, for companies of any size.
“Industrial AI is a game-changer that will create significant positive impact in the real world across all industries,” said Siemens AG Chief Technology Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, and Member of the Managing Board Peter Koerte, in a statement released by Siemens. “Industrial AI allows us to harness the vast amounts of data generated in industrial environments and turn it into insights that drive real business impact. We are adding new industrial AI capabilities across the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to enable our customers to stay competitive, resilient, and sustainable in an increasingly complex world.”
Democratizing industrial tech for startups
Siemens’ presence at CES also highlighted the company’s commitment to enabling startups and companies of all sizes to use its industrial metaverse technologies. Through the new Siemens for Startups program, innovators of any size have access to the intelligence, ecosystems, and technologies they need to turn their big ideas into world-changing innovations.
Siemens is providing access to venture partnering and client services along with dramatically reduced cost access to software and hardware from the Siemens Xcelerator open business platform. In addition, Siemens is collaborating with Amazon Web Services to offer AWS credits, business development resources and access to the AWS Activate program for technical and go-to-market support.
Aviation startup selects Xcelerator platform
During Siemens’ press conference at CES 2025, the company announced an agreement with JetZero, a pioneering aviation startup working to build the future of sustainable air travel, to collaborate on the development and production of JetZero’s blended wing aircraft.
The innovative blended wing design aims to improve fuel efficiency by 50 percent, reduce noise, and deliver the promise of zero carbon emissions by 2035. JetZero will leverage the Siemens Xcelerator open digital business platform to design, manufacture, and operate their new aircraft.
JetZero is planning to build its “Factory of the Future,” a new greenfield factory in the United States where the company intends to tightly integrate Siemens’ automation hardware, software, and services to help it achieve its ambitious vision—one that encompasses electrification, automation, and digitalization of the aircraft and its production. The JetZero aircraft and its associated manufacturing operations will be simulated virtually, using comprehensive digital twins. This will enable JetZero to de-risk the manufacturing process, validate the approach, and scale processes long before any ground is broken or jets take to the skies, the release stated.
“Siemens is giving us the confidence to take a leap, not just a step, in revolutionizing air travel,” said JetZero CEO Tom O’Leary, in the release. “Their digital twin and industrial metaverse technologies will be instrumental in helping us design, build, and operate the world’s first fully digital aircraft, delivering a better experience for passengers and airlines while also reducing fuel consumption by 50 percent.”
Collaborating with Sony to enable immersive engineering
In collaboration with Sony Corporation, Siemens is introducing a new toolset for immersive engineering that brings the power of mixed reality to the product engineering and manufacturing community. Siemens’ Immersive Engineering toolset combines Siemens NX software for product engineering, with a head-mounted display from Sony to enable high-fidelity mixed reality and 3D-focused collaboration, the company said.
“In the era of digital twins, Siemens and Sony have collaborated closely to bring NX Immersive Designer to market. With 4K OLED Microdisplays, intuitive controls, and the comfortable design, closely integrated with Siemens’ advanced software, we firmly believe this new immersive engineering solution will pave the way for the future of engineering.” said Seiya Amatatsu, Incubation Center, XR Technology Development Division, Sony Corporation.
New software suite for product engineering
Koerte was joined on stage at CES by Tony Hemmelgarn, president and CEO, Siemens Digital Industries Software, to unveil Siemens’ new Designcenter software suite. Designcenter brings together Siemens’ portfolio of design and engineering software—including Solid Edge and NX software—in one unified offering, enabling companies of any size to design and collaborate using the industry-leading Parasolid modeling kernel.
“A lot of companies make their design software available to small businesses or to the very largest enterprises,” said Hemmelgarn in the release. “Designcenter is unique in that it is truly open and accessible for everyone. Companies of every size can scale with the same solution set—their data in the same format—without interruption.”
Collaborating with NVIDIA to bring photorealism to PLM
Together with NVIDIA, Siemens announced new additions to the Siemens Xcelerator open digital business platform, including the Teamcenter Digital Reality Viewer powered by NVIDIA Omniverse, which brings large-scale, physically based visualization directly into the product lifecycle management (PLM) system. This capability also enables teams to collaborate in a secure, digital twin environment using their live 3D data, reducing errors and data discrepancies while streamlining workflows and decision-making.
“Our continued collaboration with NVIDIA will be transformative for our customers, empowering them to virtualize and visualize product and plants like never before. Bringing together the best-in-class capabilities of each company, we’re equipping customers with the tools they need to make informed decisions, optimize their operations, and accelerate their digital transformation,” said Koerte.
Bringing industrial AI to the shop floor
Siemens is also bringing Industrial AI directly to the shop floor with the new Siemens Industrial Copilot for Operations, enabling AI tasks to run as close as possible to machines. This is reported to facilitate rapid, real-time decision making for shop floor operators and maintenance engineers, boosting productivity, operational efficiency, and minimizing downtime.
The Siemens Industrial Copilot ecosystem is continuously evolving to offer AI capabilities across the industrial value chain and into sectors that include discrete and process manufacturing, infrastructure, and mobility.
“This suite of copilots can enhance human-machine collaboration across all experience levels, helping to accelerate development times and innovation cycles. The Siemens Industrial Copilot will be integrated with the Industrial Edge ecosystem, which has been enhanced with AI for deploying, operating, and managing AI models within the production environment,” the release stated.