- We’re honored to join the OPC Foundation and our membership underscores Google Cloud’s commitment to openness and industry collaboration. OPC UA will be our way of incorporating machine data into our data analytics and AI capabilities, to ultimately drive new capability and performance within the factory. By driving AI across the value chain, our goal is to provide flexibility and choice at industrial scale, Dominik Wee, Managing Director Manufacturing, Industrial and Transportation, Google Cloud, commented on the decision to join the OPC Foundation.

Because of its versatility and manufacturer independence, OPC UA is already used today in many different industrial applications. However, OPC UA is much more than just a data exchange protocol in the traditional sense. Instead, OPC UA is an industrial, protocol-agnostic framework for the Industrial Internet of Things and Industrie 4.0 that contains mechanisms for secure, reliable, manufacturer, and platform-independent information exchange, as well as options for semantic information modeling and self-description of devices. OPC UA scales from the sensor across all levels to MES / ERP and also into the cloud including cybersecurity mechanism built from start.

- It is gratifying to see a key market player like Google Cloud that will bring its artificial intelligence and machine learning expertise choose to join the OPC Foundation and to standardize on OPC UA to implement Industrie 4.0 data connectivity between its customers’ shop-floor systems and Google’s cloud solutions, Stefan Hoppe, OPC Foundation President, and Executive Director said.

- From the ground up, OPC UA was designed to enable secure end-to-end data connectivity and interoperability throughout the enterprise. As such, the value that OPC UA delivers extends equally from the most finite of field devices to the latest cloud-based applications and everything in-between. Google Cloud’s decision to standardize on OPC UA pays testament to this, Mr. Hoppe continued. 

To learn more about Google Cloud’s Industry 4.0 efforts, tune into the Google Cloud’s Next OnAir Industry Insights: Addressing the 'New Normal' In Manufacturing session: https://cloud.withgoogle.com/next/sf/sessions?session=INDINST106