Evonik Partners with IBM, Duisburg-Essen Uni for Digitalization

Evonik Industries AG as a pioneer in digitalization is setting aside €100 million ($113.4 million) and is also entering into a strategic partnership with IBM and University of Duisburg-Essen, aimed at forging ahead with the digital change in the chemical industry.

Evonik in early 2017 founded Evonik Digital GmbH to develop and advance ideas in this area.

“For us as a specialty chemicals company, digitalization brings with it a world of possibilities. Now it’s about identifying them, testing them out and being able to put them to good use,” said Christian Kullmann, chairman, Evonik Industries AG executive board.

“By the year 2020, we aim to see around €100 million going into development and testing of digital technologies and the development of digital skills. It’s not just about data and technology, but especially about new business models, solutions, services for customers, and training qualified staff,” said Dr Henrik Hahn, chief digital officer and chairman, Evonik Digital GmbH management board.

The partnership with IBM will see Evonik benefit from the latest technologies and innovative projects IBM is spearheading, encompassing technologies such as cognitive and cloud based technologies such as blockchain, Quantum computing, Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 amongst others.

In July 2017 the first pilot project will start with Evonik and IBM set to co-develop a Cognitive Evonik-specific Chemical and Life Science Knowledge Corpus based on data analyzed by IBM Watson Explorer and Watson Knowledge Studio. The resulting insights from this solution will be made available as a Digital Advisory Services but also to be used for efficiency improvements.

“As a partner with Evonik, we bring forward our most advanced Cognitive and Cloud technologies and our newest research findings, to support Evonik stand out and taking a pioneering role in the chemical industry in digital transformation,” said Martina Koederitz, general manager, IBM Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The new strategic co operation between Evonik and the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) will focus on the people and skills at the center of digital transformation. Topics include, for example, interactive knowledge transfer and individually tailored training concepts in industrial practice. The cooperation will also look into the benefits of data exchange and digital business partnerships.

“Digitalization is one of the key challenges of our time. The cooperation with Evonik offers us the chance to relate our expertise in the interaction of people and digital systems to industrial applications and to transfer our insights into practice more quickly,” said prof Ulrich Radtke, rector of the University Duisburg-Essen (UDE).