A large market, an expensive problem, and rules that now require the answer.
Every figure below was read at its source, and each links to it. Where a number
is often repeated but we could not find where it comes from, it is not here.
Industrial AI
$43.6B → $154B
The industrial AI market was worth $43.6 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach $153.9 billion by 2030, growing 23% a year. It is still about 0.1% of an average manufacturer's revenue.
IoT Analytics, 2025
Industrial DataOps
49% a year
The layer that prepares plant data for use is under 0.1% of an $89 billion industrial connectivity market, and is forecast to grow 49% a year to 2028.
IoT Analytics, 2024
Industrial software
$146B → $355B
Industrial software was a $146 billion market in 2023, forecast to reach $355 billion by 2030.
IoT Analytics, 2024
What the category is worth
$3.1B in cash
Schneider Electric agreed to buy Cognite, an Oslo industrial data company with about $170 million revenue in 2025, for $3.1 billion in cash, and fold it into AVEVA, which it took private in 2023 at about £9.9 billion.
Hydrocarbon Processing, 2026
Unplanned downtime
$1.4 trillion
Unplanned downtime costs the world's 500 largest companies about 11% of their revenue a year. One lost hour on an automotive line costs $2.3 million.
Siemens, The True Cost of Downtime 2024
Data nobody uses
68% unused
Only 32% of the data available to enterprises is put to work; the rest is collected and left.
Seagate and IDC, Rethink Data
Projects that fall short
70%
Seven in ten digital transformations fall short of their objectives.
BCG, 2020
Water, worldwide
$6.7 trillion
Global water infrastructure needs $6.7 trillion of financing by 2030 and $22.6 trillion by 2050.
OECD, Financing Water
Water, in the EU
€289 billion
EU water services need €289 billion of extra investment by 2030 to comply with existing law, on top of about €100 billion spent each year.
European Commission, 2020
Water, in Norway
NOK 411 to 535 bn
Norwegian municipalities need NOK 411 to 535 billion of water and wastewater investment over twenty years.
Norsk Vann, 2025, via NTB
The people who run it
1 in 3
About a third of US drinking water and wastewater operators can retire within ten years; in US manufacturing, 1.9 million of 3.8 million needed jobs could go unfilled by 2033.
US EPA; Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute
NIS2
€10M or 2%
Drinking water and wastewater operators are in scope of the EU's cyber security directive since October 2024, with fines up to €10 million or 2% of global turnover for essential entities.
European Commission, NIS2
Critical entities
July 2026
Member States had to name their critical entities, energy and water among them, by 17 July 2026, and those entities must show they can keep running.
Directive (EU) 2022/2557
The Data Act
Sept 2025
Since 12 September 2025 a plant has the right to have its machine data shared with a third party of its choice.
European Commission, Data Act
The AI Act
Dec 2027
Rules for high-risk AI in critical infrastructure apply from 2 December 2027: AI there will have to show its working.
European Commission, AI Act
Augury
$1B+
Machine health AI: a $180 million round led by Baker Hughes in 2021 made it worth over $1 billion, kept through a $75 million round in 2025.
Augury, 2025
Seeq
$165M raised
Analytics on industrial time series: a $50 million Series D led by Sixth Street Growth in 2024.
Seeq, 2024
Litmus and HighByte
$42.6M and $16.5M
The two leading industrial DataOps companies, on their own disclosed totals; Litmus has since raised again, led by Insight Partners, amount undisclosed.
Litmus, 2022; HighByte, 2024
Cognite, before the sale
$1.6B
Valued at $1.6 billion when TCV invested $150 million in 2021, five years before Schneider's $3.1 billion.
Cognite, 2021
The civil drone market
$44B → $83B
Worth $44.4 billion in 2026 and forecast to reach $83 billion by 2035; services, inspection among them, are almost four fifths of it.
Drone Industry Insights, 2026
Why drones come down
64% technical
Technical problems, not pilots, caused 64% of more than 150 civil drone incidents studied: the failures a log check is built to catch.
RMIT, Aerospace 2016
Inspection from the air
$11.6B → $23B
Drone inspection and monitoring, forecast to double from 2022 to 2027.
MarketsandMarkets
The people, in Europe
27.5% over 55
Of everyone working in EU water supply and waste, 27.5% are 55 or older, more than in any other sector we checked. Our arithmetic on Eurostat's counts for 2025.
Eurostat, lfsa_egan2
Where Auge fits: below the platforms and the AI, above the data the plant already
exports. The step every one of those budgets has to pay for first, done on the plant's own
hardware, with the evidence a regulator can read.