Emerson’s ‘Project Beyond’ to Modernize and Seamlessly Integrate the Industrial Automation Technology Stack
May 20, 2025
Emerson is pioneering a new software-defined enterprise operations platform – dubbed Project Beyond – that will fundamentally change today’s approach to industrial automation.
Emerson’s Project Beyond will deliver the industry’s first software-defined, OT-ready digital platform that seamlessly integrates and optimizes industrial operations. Leveraging innovations in software-defined control, data management, zero-trust cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, Emerson’s new platform will help automation investments deliver value without adding complexity.
The speed of technology and industrial artificial intelligence (AI) advancements, combined with increased computing power needs and the unprecedented volume and complexity of siloed data generated across industrial assets, requires a new, cost-efficient way for companies to leverage automation across the enterprise while protecting existing investments.
Emerson’s Project Beyond will tackle this challenge by creating a flexible, scalable and secure platform that connects today’s existing automation installed base with modern technologies to empower continuous, enterprise-wide visibility, optimization and, eventually, autonomous operations. Project Beyond will also provide a consistent platform to deploy and manage new AI applications and models, along with contextualized data, to unlock unimagined flexibility, safety, sustainability and performance for essential industries such as energy, power, life sciences, chemical and mining.
“Companies are eager to modernize automation and keep pace with the promise of new technologies like AI without ripping and replacing their existing infrastructure or dealing with the pain and costs of integrating new applications and millions of fragmented data points,” said Ram Krishnan, chief operating officer at Emerson. “Project Beyond will use the power of software-defined control to introduce an entirely new, scalable, seamlessly integrated infrastructure with automated data contextualization to turn trapped data into powerful operational efficiencies.”
Evolved from its DeltaV distributed control system, AspenTech’s software portfolio and Boundless Automation vision, Emerson’s new connected industrial technology platform will reduce the costly and complex technology integration required to move data across different operational technology (OT) systems and applications, helping customers deploy and scale new capabilities faster.
“By combining Emerson’s automation capabilities with AspenTech’s deep software expertise – from modeling and optimization to machine learning and AI – we’re embedding artificial intelligence into our systems, turning information into insights that will help our customers along their journey toward optimized autonomous operations,” Krishnan said.
The building blocks of Project Beyond include:
- Modern Computing Environments: Project Beyond will unify the latest in on-premise edge computing with the power of the cloud to deliver unparalleled data analytics.
- Networking & Connectivity: Secure connectors, APIs and software interfaces that allow connectivity of existing OT systems, devices and legacy I/O to the platform as well as the ability to connect the platform to IT environments.
- DataOps: A powerful data fabric weaving together all OT assets, from devices to entire systems, turning contextualized data and codified knowledge into digital intelligence around operations.
- App Marketplace: A catalogue of state-of-the-art applications, curated for an organization’s unique needs, collected in a single marketplace for easy access and deployment.
- AI Orchestration: An orchestration engine that will manage the deployment and lifecycle of AI agents enabling the future human/AI hybrid workforce.
- Zero-Trust Security Architecture: A security plane that secures every access, device, application, connection and data within the platform.
Designed as a data-centric platform, the enterprise operations platform enables a more flexible deployment of even more powerful mission-critical functionality, such as the new DeltaV IQ Controller. This software-defined controller will run on commercial, off-the-shelf servers, bringing increased scalability, flexibility, resiliency and extensibility to enterprise operations.
“Emerson has never been content to incrementally improve on current offerings, especially today with the tremendous opportunities around industrial AI,” said Krishnan. “Project Beyond is designed to make it easier and more cost-effective to access the data you need to unleash new AI applications and future-proof your industrial automation investments.”
