new integration between product design and maintenance via IFS <\/a>is, according to Fokke, rarely a purely technical problem. Forcing teams to step off their own little islands is a cultural shift, he argues. Siemens therefore trains its own teams to dig deep into the customer\u2019s organization, because simply installing a tool just doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\nNo room for hallucinations<\/p>\n
A key topic during the event is the rise of agentic AI. While consumers mainly know AI as a chatbot that occasionally makes up a fact, that\u2019s unacceptable in heavy industry.<\/p>\n
Fokke states emphatically that when developing aircraft, you cannot settle for an answer that is \u201cprobably\u201d correct. In engineering and manufacturing, the result must be 100 percent accurate. That is why Siemens connects AI-native systems directly to data backbones such as Teamcenter via the new Intelligent Center X architecture. By using graph technology, results are validated based on a single source of truth to prevent hallucinations. According to the CEO, the best results still come from close collaboration between humans and AI. The human touch remains essential, he says.<\/p>\n
The European blind spot<\/p>\n
When we ask Fokke about the biggest general assumption in the tech sector that he questions, his gaze shifts to the geopolitical stage and the discussion surrounding digital sovereignty. He warns that in Europe and the Benelux region, there is simply too little attention paid to the enormous dependence\u2014particularly on the U.S.\u2014on computing power for AI.<\/p>\n
Europe has neither the large AI models nor the large-scale computing capacity under its own control. He calls this paradoxical, because although we have an absolute global player in the Netherlands\u2014ASML\u2014which supplies the machines for the most powerful chips, the massive data centers required for that computing power are not located here. In his view, we as a region really need to be more alert to this.<\/p>\n
Focus on depth in the Benelux<\/p>\n
This focus on the specific business case is closely linked to Fokke\u2019s market strategy in the Benelux. As stated on his LinkedIn profile: \u201cfewer accounts done properly beats broad coverage done thin.\u201d In practice, Siemens employs a differentiated model for this. Strategic accounts of enormous scale, such as his former client ASML, are served directly by dedicated account teams who visit the client\u2019s premises daily.<\/p>\n
The broader Dutch and Belgian market is deliberately covered through a network of specialized partners. These range from resellers to build-and-service partners. They bring specific expertise in areas such as simulation tools or low-code.<\/p>\n
According to Fokke, this layered approach is essential. In practice, an industrial company with fifty employees simply prefers to do business with a partner of a comparable size. That\u2019s more convenient than dealing directly with a global corporation employing hundreds of thousands of people.<\/p>\n
The task for Monday<\/p>\n
Siemens is investing heavily in training models that specifically understand what a 3D model, a bill of materials, or a work instruction is. Precisely because these developments are moving so quickly, Fokke drew a clear conclusion for his own organization after a tour of the exhibition floor.<\/p>\n
He recounts how, the day before, he had been walking around with the head of a major aerospace company, who was amazed and surprised to realize that he hadn\u2019t known all these capabilities were already built into the tools they were using. The customer immediately wanted to book a follow-up session for all his engineers.<\/p>\n
This led Fokke to an important personal insight. Siemens sometimes falls short of clearly communicating what is already possible. Customers are so focused on the day-to-day operations that they sometimes fail to notice how quickly their standard tools are evolving. His main task for his team in the coming period is therefore to proactively engage with customers and show them how they can already put AI to practical use. But, as Fokke concludes with a smile, referring to his own LinkedIn philosophy, this must always be directly linked to the specific business case. It has to show up on the bottom line of the P&L.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Realize LIVE Europe 2026 in Amsterdam, high-tech terms are flying left and right. From multiphysics simulations at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21002],"tags":[38828,25360,9840,29426,2695,38829,38830,6487],"class_list":["post-45783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-siemens","tag-agenticai","tag-data-management","tag-digital-twin","tag-industrial-software","tag-manufacturing","tag-patrick-fokke","tag-realizelive","tag-siemens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Een](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Patrick-Fokke.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Patrick Fokke \u2013 Siemens<\/p>\n