Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all give manufacturing some love at Chicago technology show, hosting pitch sessions in large exhibit spaces at an event usually all about "big iron."
Francisco Javier Franco Espinoza, a strategy and innovations manager for Siemens Factory Automation, discusses digital manufacturing in the AWS booth.
Walk through the South Hall of McCormick Place in Chicago during The International Manufacturing Technology Show, and little looks different from past years. The big iron—massive vertical and horizontal machining centers designed to carve metal parts out of steel bars and blocks in seconds—was on display.
But turn around, and the story’s a bit different. Nestled between companies offering metal linear guideways and material flow management or robotic welding systems are some familiar names in technology: Google, Microsoft, AWS. While each booth is different, the messages were remarkably similar.
Bio: Robert Schoenberger has been writing about manufacturing technology in one form or another since the late 1990s. He began his career in newspapers in South Texas and has worked for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi; The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland where he spent more than six years as the automotive reporter. In 2013, he launched Today's Motor Vehicles, a magazine focusing on design and manufacturing topics within the automotive and commercial truck worlds. He joined IndustryWeek in late 2021 and took on responsibility for Smart Industry in 2023.
