Knorr-Bremse has opened its new global center for artificial intelligence (AI) in Chennai, India. The move is an important step in the implementation of the company’s global digital strategy. Following the start of the ramp-up phase in August 2025, around 70 experts will work on new AI solutions to help increase process efficiency, performance, and implementation speed within the organization. The initial focus will be on AI agents for accounting and software development. These will then be gradually expanded to other areas such as supply chain management, process optimization, and project management.
Marc Llistosella, CEO of Knorr-Bremse AG: “A core objective of our BOOST strategy program is to increase the efficiency and performance of our organization. As part of this, we are also taking our entire global processes to a new level. Our new AI center in Chennai is a targeted investment in artificial intelligence, whose application to operational processes will make an important contribution to the digital transformation of Knorr-Bremse. As the global market leader, we want to be a frontrunner in the industrial use of AI, improving, accelerating, and completely rethinking numerous processes, working methods, and approaches.”
Sathees Navaratnam, Chief Digital Officer at Knorr-Bremse: “AI is rapidly finding its way into all areas of the company – whether procurement, human resources or, of course, IT. Against this backdrop, our presence in the technology hub of Chennai offers ideal conditions, both now and in the future. Specifically, highly qualified specialists on site can train AI models using our company data and quickly and flexibly adapt so-called AI agents to our needs. The solutions will support teams throughout the Group in improving processes, accelerating workflows, and making data-driven decisions.”
AI strengthens Knorr-Bremse and its customers in the competitive environment
AI agents are software programs that can independently break down larger tasks into individual steps and execute them. Knorr-Bremse sees promising initial applications in software development and automated invoice verification. AI agents could also be used in the near future for progress measurement, cost control, virtual product testing, and supply chain management. The AI agents are supported in their tasks by a specially developed analytics engine, which acts as the nerve center of the AI and can already generate software code faster and more accurately than human developers.
At the same time, customers will benefit from the added value of the AI center: In addition to its own process optimization and efficiency gains, Knorr-Bremse will use AI in the multi-stage engineering and innovation processes of its system solutions for rail and commercial vehicles. Among other things, AI agents will soon also support the development of electronic and software components – for braking systems, for example – to make R&D processes faster, more adaptive, and more flexible, and to integrate increasingly differentiated customer needs even more closely into product development.
SOURCE: Knorr-Bremse
