Emerson says its new platform ‘will change our approach to automation’
22 May 2025 
Emerson has announced a software-defined operations platform that, it says, will fundamentally change today’s approach to industrial automation. It adds that the Project Beyond platform will deliver the industry’s first software-defined, OT-ready digital platform that integrates and optimises industrial operations.
The development follows Emerson’s recent acquisition of the industrial software vendor AspenTech. The new platform brings together aspects of AspenTech’s software portfolio with Emerson’s DeltaV distributed control system, and its Boundless Automation platform that integrates operations across the field, the edge and the cloud. The aim is to reduce the costly and complex integration needed to move data between different OT (operational technology) systems and applications, helping users to deploy and scale new capabilities faster.
Emerson says that the platform will help investments in automation to deliver value without adding complexity, using innovations such as software-defined control, data management, zero-trust cybersecurity and AI.
According to the company, the pace of advances in technology and industrial AI, combined with increased computing power and the unprecedented volume and complexity of siloed industrial data, requires a new, cost-efficient way for companies to apply automation while protecting their existing investments.
Project Beyond is intended to tackle this challenge by creating a flexible, scalable and secure platform that connects the existing automation base with modern technologies to allow continuous, enterprise-wide visibility, optimisation and, eventually, autonomous operations. It will also offer a way to deploy and manage new AI applications and models, along with contextualised data, to unlock flexibility, safety, sustainability and performance.
“Companies are eager to modernise automation and keep pace with the promise of new technologies like AI, without ripping out and replacing their existing infrastructure or dealing with the pain and costs of integrating new applications and millions of fragmented data points,” explains Emerson’s chief operating officer, Ram Krishnan. “Project Beyond will use the power of software-defined control to introduce an entirely new, scalable, seamlessly integrated infrastructure with automated data contextualisation to turn trapped data into powerful operational efficiencies.
“By combining Emerson’s automation capabilities with AspenTech’s deep software expertise – from modelling and optimisation 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 optimised autonomous operations,” he adds.
The building blocks of Project Beyond include:
- Modern computing environments The platform will combine the latest in on-premises edge computing with the power of the cloud to deliver unparalleled analytics
- Networking and connectivity Secure connectors, APIs and software interfaces will allow existing OT systems, devices and legacy I/O to connect to the new platform, as well as connecting to IT environments
- DataOps A powerful data fabric weaving together all OT assets, from devices to entire systems, turning data and codified knowledge into digital intelligence around operations
- An app marketplace A catalogue of applications, curated to meet an organisation’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 This will secure every access, device, application, connection and data in the platform.
Project Beyond is being designed as a data-centric platform that will enable a more flexible deployment of powerful mission-critical functions, such as Emerson’s new software-defined DeltaV IQ controller, which will run on commercial, off-the-shelf servers to bring 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,” says 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.”
