Former Senior Vice President of Operations, Carrier Global Corp
Masayoshi Son, Adrian Button & John Thornton on AI-Driven Synergy in 21st Century Manufacturing
LAB 4 "HOW CAN LEADERS PIONEER RESILIENT INNOVATION THROUGH ADVANCED MANUFACTURING AND AI?" took place at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh on October 29, 2024, during the 8th Edition of Future Investment Initiative. #fII8
Advanced manufacturing and AI are revolutionizing how things are made and driving progress across industries. With AI adoption a top priority for 75% of advanced manufacturing companies, according to Bain & Company, the potential is vast. How can business leaders leverage these technologies to build resilient organizations, foster a culture of co...
About Adrian Button
Adrian Button, former Senior Vice President of Operations at Carrier Global, spoke at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh on October 29, 2024, as part of a panel on advanced manufacturing and AI. He described Carrier’s use of AI across four pillars of operations: planning, sourcing, making, and servicing. Button stated that AI-driven demand sensing helps position products by analyzing weather patterns and buying behaviors, and that predictive analytics are used to anticipate supply chain disruptions such as port congestion. He also noted that AI has reduced the time needed to generate contracts from eight hours to one hour, and that he finds it difficult not to invest resources in AI-related projects. Button identified two areas of high demand for product innovation and sustainability: data centers, where Carrier’s technology improves efficiency for cooling chips, and residential HVAC systems, where integrating batteries can reduce grid load. He praised the Alat team for simplifying processes and accelerating decision-making. In a separate 2022 appearance at the Marxism 2022 festival, a speaker named Adrian Budd—a lecturer in international relations—gave a talk titled “Is China a new global superpower?” in which he argued that China is not yet a superpower and discussed inter-imperialist rivalry and the role of the Chinese working class.
Transcript (33 segments)
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Amit Mira0:11
Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the panel. My name is Amit Mira, I'm the CEO for Alat. Before I introduce our panelists, I want to make sure everyone can hear me. We have three amazing partners here today. Masayoshi Son is the CEO and Chairman of SoftBank, a visionary who has been investing in AI for over a decade. John Thornton is a geopolitical expert from a finance background who can navigate uncharted waters. And Adrian Button is the practitioner, leading Carrier's global operations, supply chain resiliency, and advanced manufacturing. Let's give them a round of applause.
So what are we trying to do in this panel? The focus is on advanced manufacturing and AI, and how it's reshaping industries. Let's explore how these leaders are leveraging these tools to build resilient, efficient businesses. Let me start with Masayoshi.
Masayoshi, you've seen before anyone else how AI is going to change the world. Focusing on manufacturing and the service side, how do you think AI is changing those industries, and what practical advice can we give?
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Masayoshi Son4:11
In mass production, it's robots. But why do factories still have so many workers? Because humans are the most flexible. Demand and supply change every day, with holiday seasons and different SKUs. Traditional robots don't have eyes. They don't need eyes if it's the same thing over and over. But smart robotics with AI is like the smartphone. The smart robot is coming with eyes and a brain, bringing flexibility, and then robots can go outside the factory too.
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John Thornton6:18
To build these new systems, you need a lot of skills. You need new warehousing systems, autonomous manufacturing, and that requires more autonomous enterprises. It's not just one robot; you need an operating system to coordinate and orchestrate, otherwise it's chaos. You need a massive brain for training, so the robot can adapt without programming. The old robot had to be programmed; the future robot learns by itself.
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Amit Mira8:07
John, give us a view of how you see the manufacturing footprint given the geopolitical dynamics, and how can Saudi Arabia play a bigger part in global manufacturing?
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John Thornton8:32
First, I'm very happy to be here. This event is a hundred times bigger and more impressive than the first time. It illustrates the point I'll make about the strategic position of the Kingdom in the 21st century. The economy of Saudi Arabia is already the biggest in the Middle East and North Africa. The access to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia is very easy. By 2050, the world's population will go from 8 to 10 billion. Those two billion new people will come primarily from nine countries: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, DRC, Indonesia, and the United States. So the growth is right here. What's happening with Alat is at the center of it. The world's best companies will come here to venture and make this a hub.
The talent, the scale, the capital, and the government policies are all here. You can't find that anywhere else. If you're a world-class company, you have to come here and take advantage of all those markers.
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Amit Mira12:37
John, you have to top your first answer with the second answer. How do you bring sustainability into the whole equation? How important is sustainability in the future of manufacturing?
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John Thornton13:21
Sustainability is absolutely essential. As this becomes the innovation hub of the world, companies will want to be world-class, and we care about sustainability, particularly the young. It will be cutting-edge and backward integrated into the rest of the world.
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Amit Mira13:51
This is the point about leapfrogging. Let's try to do things that make us future-ready, not just meeting competition. Let me switch over to Adrian. Adrian, you are practical. Give us a view from your perspective on how you're applying advanced technologies and AI in your operational improvements every day.
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Adrian Button14:48
First of all, thanks for the invite. I lead supply chain and operations for Carrier. We have 42 manufacturing facilities globally and 50,000 people. Our supply chain is very complex; we produce millions of heating and cooling devices every year with over 10,000 suppliers. When I think about how we use AI, I think about four pillars. First, planning: we use AI for demand sensing to position products where they're needed. Second, sourcing: we use AI to look at geopolitical issues and material availability to navigate problems before they arise. Third, manufacturing: we use AI to generate contracts that used to take eight hours in one hour, freeing up resources for strategic work. Fourth, delivery: we optimize shipments between warehouses. So it's very difficult for me not to invest all our resources in AI-related projects.
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Amit Mira18:20
How far away are we from letting AI run factories completely?
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Adrian Button18:29
In different factories, you can use AI in different ways. Where you have more automation and repeatable processes, we're close. But in factories with more complexity and different products on mixed-model lines, it becomes more difficult. The planning inside is where AI can make the biggest impact initially, and then we can build on that.
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Amit Mira19:02
Tell us a little more about what Carrier is doing in the data center and energy storage areas.
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Adrian Button19:20
There's a lot of demand for product innovation and sustainability. The data center boom means hyperscalers are investing a lot, and chips produce a lot of heat. Our technology allows data centers to be more efficient in their energy consumption for cooling. Another huge opportunity is in cold chain for food and pharmaceuticals, reducing energy consumption, and then thinking about batteries to store surplus power for peak times to take the load off the grid. Those are two great opportunities for us.
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Amit Mira20:34
John, coming back to you. You've been involved in many startups focused on autonomous manufacturing and 3D printing. How do you see the innovation engine changing the game of manufacturing?
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John Thornton21:12
Before I answer, I want to add two things. First, by 2050, 21 of the top 25 economies will be in that geographic area I talked about. Second, in a US-China world, it's not a good idea for the two richest countries to fight. The emerging countries, like the Kingdom, will become too important and will have relationships with both, telling them they need a functional relationship. That has major implications for prosperity and peace. Now, a specific example. I'm on the board of a company that uses a seamlessly integrated software-based system: AI generates a perfectly optimized design, 3D prints it with AI-generated materials, and automatically assembles it. The result is the rapid generation of novel product hardware that reduces weight and parts, performs better, and uses recyclable materials. That's where it's headed.
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Amit Mira24:07
What word would you use for the manufacturing of the future? Friend-shoring, near-shoring, localization, or continuation of globalization?
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John Thornton24:34
I think it'll be distributed and entirely connected.
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Amit Mira24:46
Masayoshi, changing gears. If you had to put your vision cap on, which industries will be most disrupted in manufacturing driven by AI?
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Masayoshi Son25:32
Any physical movement, like blue-collar workers, with super intelligence and robotics. There's nothing more dangerous. That's happening and unavoidable. AI will also change the medical, banking, and all other industries. Blue-collar and white-collar industries will both be disrupted. Super AI will be smarter. But humans are born to be happy. We can let AI work and enjoy life, be valuable to others through art, entertainment, sports, and heart-to-heart connections. AI is a tool, so let's use it to be happy, with less disease and more respect for each other's emotions.
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Amit Mira29:08
What is one application in any industry from AI that has really gotten you excited?
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Masayoshi Son29:23
Medical and all kinds of productivity. We all become happier if we can live longer with less disease. Let AI work for us.
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Amit Mira29:40
Masayoshi, can you describe what we are doing together here in Riyadh?
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Masayoshi Son29:49
With Alat, we make the robots together. We put the brain into the robot.
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Amit Mira30:14
John, closing with one thing that surprised you most as you started to think from a Saudi Arabia perspective in terms of manufacturing.
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John Thornton30:44
The thing that surprised me most is the speed with which you're moving. The speed and the scale are unbelievable. Never even attempted.
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Amit Mira31:11
You mentioned Lenovo. Can you say a general statement?
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John Thornton31:20
Lenovo is either the only truly global Chinese company or the first global Chinese company. That's why the marriage makes sense, given everything I said earlier. We want to be here, and we have the best partner in the Kingdom.
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Amit Mira31:46
Adrian, anything that surprised you or excited you?
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Adrian Button31:51
The ability to bring decision makers together to open doors and speed up decisions is truly impressive. Thank you.
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Amit Mira32:18
I want to thank our great panelists. I hope you got great value. I learned a lot from each of them. Let's have a big round of applause for all of them. Thank you all for joining us. We're on an amazing journey that is humanistic and about happiness. Let's enjoy it together.