Industry 4.0 stories

Chief executives' calls in Q1 2026 were dominated by AI, but references to Iran surged as boardrooms weighed war risks and supply chain exposure.

LeanDNA study finds most supply plan failures hit at factory execution stage, with manufacturers losing or risking 10% of revenue as disruptions mount.

Affirmo's Lip Sing Tay says AI can unlock smarter real-time location tracking, as the Singapore firm targets tougher IoT use cases.

Radix has set out a Houston industrial AI event for 2026, aiming to help energy and manufacturing leaders turn pilots into operational gains.

Tech Mahindra and ParkourSC deepen AI supply chain tie-up to target pharma and cold chain customers across global markets.

AEM Networks widens its test kit as AI-driven bandwidth, latency and audit pressures push the Singapore unit beyond cable certification into fibre and RF.

Canals expands AI tools for wholesale distributors with automation for billing, purchase orders and customer queries across back-office teams.

Syspro appoints Chief Revenue Officer Leanne Taylor as Chief Executive Officer in a planned handover, as Jaco Maritz moves to a board role.

HBK unveils PW22i load cell with IO-Link for faster packaging lines and robotic systems, aiming to boost throughput, diagnostics and uptime.

Small US defence manufacturers face CMMC readiness shortfalls as cybersecurity checks tighten, with many underestimating the work needed to win contracts.

Honda taps Macrium to harden US factory recovery, with centralised backup tools aimed at reducing downtime across air-gapped production systems.

Siemens adds an on-premises monitoring tool for industrial drive systems, keeping vibration and condition data inside plants for stricter control.

Southern Glazer’s widens autonomous inventory drone use to nine US distribution centres, boosting accuracy and freeing labour from manual counts.

RobCo taps Dennis Hauser as Chief Financial Officer to back US expansion after USD $100 million funding round and sharpen its RaaS push.

Orderfox readies Gieni ABX, an autonomous execution layer to turn its industrial AI insights into completed tasks across enterprise systems.

Energy and chemicals groups target 80% autonomous operations by 2030 as AI-led automation accelerates amid costs, labour gaps and demand.

Arduino and Qualcomm launch a global Hackster contest around the new AI-focused UNO Q board, giving away 300 units to developers.

AutoStore debuts CubeVerse cloud and AI tools to boost warehouse throughput and real-time fulfilment without adding robots or grid space.

HPE debuts AI Grid with Nvidia to link AI factories and edge sites, promising telcos unified, ultra-low-latency distributed inference.

GMI Cloud unveils USD $12bn sovereign AI hub in Kagoshima, aiming for 1GW capacity to power Japan's next wave of “Physical AI” systems.