Schneider Electric’s Autonomous Technologies Reduce Maintenance Budget, Save 60% on OPEX – Pillay
In this interview, Devan Pillay, the newly appointed Global Segment President of Heavy Industries within Schneider Electric’s Industrial Automation business, talks to Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme, Managing Editor of The Energy Republic, about the company’s digital and autonomous technologies, with emphasis on the Middle East’s evolving energy landscape, particularly in autonomous operations across the energy value chain.
Interestingly, Schneider Electric has unveiled new research, highlighting the Middle East ambitious target for autonomous operations. The report also revealed that nearly 80% of Middle East energy sector leaders are well advanced in terms of their operational readiness for autonomous operations.
According to Schneider’s report, the UAE leads regional ambition, with 58% of energy organizations targeting full autonomy within five years. AI, digital twins, and open software-defined automation are driving next-generation infrastructure in the Middle East energy sector.
In his words, Pillay said the UAE has been progressive, not only on the AI revolution, but throughout the technology value chain including autonomous operations, positioning the country as a formidable contender in the AI race.
Excerpts:
TER: What is Schneider Electric doing in the Middle East?
Pillay: Schneider Electric has been present in the region for many decades. Our business is focused on working with partners and building a go-to-market strategy that is value-added for both parties.
Our business segments are an important aspect of our growth strategy, and as such, we have established multiple segments in the region.
We have project execution, tendering, and Salesforce teams here in the Middle East, and our investments in the region are growing substantially.
We’ve just opened a state-of-the-art, fully carbon-neutral office in Dubai.
We also hosted the Saudi Innovation Summit in September, which attracted 2000 C-suite customers, where we showcased the full Schneider portfolio aimed at the growing markets in Saudi Arabia, from Infrastructure, Buildings, Data Centres, and Industry.
The region is a significant contributor to our total turnover and employment footprint. A lot of our global and regional resources are in the UAE as well.
TER: Schneider has just released new research highlighting the growth opportunities in autonomous operations in the Middle East energy sector. Could you provide an overview of the features covered in the report? What are the key enablers around the growth opportunities in autonomous operations in the Middle East energy sector?
Pillay: The research is a validation of our expectation, highlighting the UAE as a highly progressive economy. Most of the leaders believe that their companies and operations can be fully autonomous by 2030, which is a bold statement. The government is repositioning the UAE as a formidable contender in the AI race.
As an oil-rich nation, we understand where the UAE is today, with respect to attracting multiple types of business models. And now, they are pivoting once again to lead the world in adoption and generating new use cases for artificial intelligence and autonomous operations.
Our research also includes various countries around the world with respect to their maturity towards autonomous operations. The report defined a pathway for the foundation levels of digitalization, all the way to the human-machine interface, which also includes levels four and five, which lead to autonomous operations with self-healing capabilities that help to prevent catastrophic events, like an untimely plant shutdown, and optimize the ESG aspects of the operation.
As the energy sector is still largely dependent on fossil fuels to meet the growing energy demand, we have an opportunity to utilize the capabilities AI presents to manage a diverse energy mix between renewable and non-renewable sources, hence positively impacting the climate challenges.
TER: What specific role can these technologies play on existing assets, facilities, and industrial plants to boost operational excellence? Also, could you share some notable milestones achieved with Schneider Electric’s autonomous technologies?
Pillay: At the fundamental level, we have a fair level of automation for most of the companies and customers that we serve.
Notably, the UAE has been progressive as a country, not only because of the AI revolution, but throughout time as technology evolves.
From a readiness point of view, the existing infrastructure in the UAE supports the tendency to win the AI race because it has a high level of foundational layer, capacity, and capability as far as the digital layer is concerned for autonomous operations.
Despite the high level of automation, we found that there’s still a need for human intervention with regard to the prompts that come from the automation and the automated plant, which requires human intervention to decide on the actions that need to be taken.
For example, an operator may receive multiple alarms that are non-critical, suggesting that a machine is performing at higher temperatures. The tendency of operators is to ignore these alarms, as their primary focus is usually on production outputs. Repetitively ignoring these alarms could lead to catastrophic events and plant failure, causing days of lost production and significant capex to reinstate the failed plant.
At Schneider, we’ve developed AI-driven applications that allow the Operator to engage with the AI twins that give the plant operator more insightful outcomes for long-term and medium-term consequences if the operator takes certain actions during the plant operation.
Basically, it enables them to make data-driven decisions based on potential scenarios. We believe it’s the building block for the next step before it becomes a fully automated process, where the plant itself will decide to take an action for X, Y, and Z without human intervention.
Ultimately, this is where we are positioning the system to operate using all the parameters and less human intervention.
We are currently working on a project with ADNOC Refining to pilot AI-driven autonomous operations at its plant in Abu Dhabi. Harnessing Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure™ platform, it enables plant systems to operate with minimal human intervention.
By applying AI and advanced machine learning, the solution continuously monitors, controls, and optimizes processes, supporting operators with intelligent recommendations and evolving through continuous learning. The pilot is expected to deliver measurable benefits, including reduced energy consumption, lower emissions, and enhanced operational efficiency and performance.
TER: How sustainable is the solution compared to other traditional ways of human operations in the energy sector, and what are the competitive advantages in terms of costs and performance metrics?
Pillay: Autonomous operations in energy production differ from traditional human-driven approaches by taking a holistic view rather than focusing on one or two KPIs like output. For example, a plant operator might override a high-temperature alarm to keep turbines running or delay scheduled maintenance to avoid downtime, prioritizing short-term yield. These decisions often sacrifice equipment health, safety, and ESG goals.
Autonomous systems, however, optimize across multiple dimensions – production efficiency, environmental impact, reliability, and compliance – ensuring decisions align with long-term corporate ambitions rather than short-term gains. This shift prevents the narrow pursuit of output at the expense of sustainability and governance principles.
Our autonomous technologies have the potential to reduce maintenance budget and OPEX savings to the extent of 60%.
TER: Which specific digital technologies are shaping Schneider’s business model and strategic partnerships?
Pillay: That’s a great question. Schneider Electric’s flagship offer is EcoStruxure Automation Expert. Its open, software-defined automation architecture is transforming energy production by enabling advanced technologies like AI, robotics, and digital twins. Unlike traditional closed systems, this approach decouples hardware and software, creating a flexible, interoperable environment where intelligent algorithms can optimize processes in real time.
AI-driven analytics enhance predictive maintenance and operational efficiency, while robotics automates complex tasks safely and reliably. Digital twins – virtual replicas of physical assets – allow operators to simulate scenarios, test performance, and predict outcomes without disrupting production.
Together, these innovations deliver a future-ready, sustainable energy ecosystem that supports resilience, scalability, and ESG compliance
TER: AI data centers require massive amounts of energy to function efficiently. A single query of ChatGPT can consume up to 10 times more energy than a Google search, leaving industries vulnerable to energy outages and capacity limitations. Based on your perspective, can only renewables power AI data centers? Which kind of energy architecture is suitable for AI data center development?
Pillay: The growing demand for AI-driven data centers is reshaping the energy landscape, requiring an energy mix that is affordable, sustainable, and reliable. Electrification of industry plays a critical role in decarbonization, enabling cleaner and more efficient operations.
However, AI data centers consume vast amounts of electricity—not only for processing but also for advanced cooling systems like liquid chip cooling—making traditional cooling methods obsolete. A single AI query can use up to ten times more energy than a standard web search, creating pressure on grids and exposing industries to capacity risks. To meet these challenges, the future lies in a diverse energy architecture that combines renewables with complementary sources such as natural gas, nuclear technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs), and advanced grid solutions. This integrated approach ensures resilience, scalability, and sustainability while supporting the electrification of industrial processes.
By leveraging digital technologies, software-defined energy systems, and predictive analytics, companies can optimize energy flows and reduce emissions without compromising reliability—building a foundation for powering the next generation of AI and digital infrastructure.
TER: What is Schneider doing in building a formidable workforce in this era of digital technologies?
Pillar: Schneider is a manufacturing company with over 120,000 employees around the world. AI is part of our company strategy, from both a product architecture and R&D perspective.
We leverage AI within our own operations. We’ve got multiple operations, and bringing AI into our operations, not only from a manufacturing perspective, but from our front office, sales, tendering, design, and customer interactions, are being tied up with AI and our operations capabilities.
We’re also working closely with our customers to unlock the benefits of Industrial AI within their industrial automation businesses.
Schneider is investing in upskilling our own employees through collaboration with institutions, including tertiary institutions and colleges, to maintain pace and attract young talent into our company.
TER: What’s next for Schneider in the Middle East?
Pillay: I’m very pleased to see that we have a solid customer base of UAE customers, so we’re definitely here to stay.
More importantly, as I said, the business environment and government are fully aligned, allowing us to utilize OEMs to bring not only the technology, but also the expertise to win the AI race and hopefully help meet their 2030 ambition.
At ADIPEC 2025, we launched six innovations around AI, one of which I’ve shared with you, which includes the autonomous technology allowing the operator to make a decision. But we’ve got multiple other areas, like the co-simulation design, built around the whole philosophy of autonomous operations, covered in the research paper that we launched.
