How Schneider Electric Scales Industrial AI with Cognite

Schneider Electric has announced plans to acquire 100% of Cognite Holding B.V. in an all-cash transaction valued at US$3.1bn.

As AI shifts from supporting analytics to executing operations, the energy management and automation firm plans to leverage the abilities of Cognite as an industrial data and AI software provider.

The acquisition is designed to position Schneider Electric as a global leader in industrial AI infrastructure.

To achieve its goal of implementing the technology within manufacturing operations, Schneider Electric requires more than just models. This includes a unified, contextualised foundation of industrial data on which AI can safely operate at scale.

The company says that with the abilities of Cognite, it can establish that foundation. The platform of the AI firm provides a unified industrial data model with agentic AI abilities.

This allows customers to operationalise AI with plant operations, asset management and engineering workflows.

According to a statement from Schneider Electric, the deal will "create a unified platform for the next phase of intelligence for industrial AI".

Turning data into competitive advantage

Olivier Blum, CEO of Schneider Electric, says that the acquisition will help strengthen AVEVA, which is the industrial software company of Schneider Electric.

“Cognite has built something rare, a truly industrial grade AI platform that turns the complexity of operational data into a competitive advantage,” he explains.

The deal strengthens AVEVA in the highest-growth segments of the market and places Schneider Electric in a strategic position as industrial intelligence continues to gain traction.

Olivier notes: “I have been extremely impressed by the world-class technology team and am convinced their unique AI expertise will be a catalyst in advancing intelligence across Schneider Electric’s portfolio.”

The company has always believed ‘the energy transition demands intelligence’ and data and unlocking both ‘requires AI’.

Olivier says: “By bringing Cognite into Schneider Electric and AVEVA, we unite the world's most comprehensive energy management and automation infrastructure with the software and AI capabilities to make it natively intelligent.

“Together, we go beyond connecting systems. We give them the ability to think, adapt and act. This is what industrial intelligence looks like at scale.”

Scaling AI to this degree could also benefit the operations of each firm on an employee level.

As AI continues to integrate across all industries, the race is on for companies to source talent with AI-ready skills.

Businesses must also find harmony combining AI with technology and human workers.

Discussing the use of AI at the employee level, Tina Kao Mylon, Chief Talent and Diversity Officer at Schneider Electric, says the confluence of people and technology means the company can improve "how employees take ownership and agency in their own career and skill development".

Driving increased investment

Founded in 2017, Cognite currently employs more than 800 people across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. The firm specialises in cloud-native data and AI platforms.

The technology of the firm allows for the integration and contextualisation of industrial data via a unified data model and knowledge graph.

This supports advanced analytics and AI-driven applications for asset-intensive industries.

In 2025, the annual revenue of Cognite exceeded US$170m, marked by a rapid adoption of the Atlas AI platform, which is a low-code industrial AI agent workbench.

The workbench powers agents with real-time, AI-ready operational technology and engineering data.

The scalable, open architecture of Cognite, combined with the capabilities of AVEVA’s CONNECT, will ensure that analytics and industrial AI can process industrial data throughout existing data ecosystems and investments of customers.

Since the growth of the AI boom, the shares of Schneider Electric have increased with shares rising over 26% in 2025 alone.

This success can be attributed in part to investors betting on companies to produce the infrastructure needed as the demand for AI-ready systems in the manufacturing industry continues to grow.

As of last month, Schneider Electric remains the fourth largest company by value in France, with a market capitalisation of approximately US$188bn.