Octave's next chapter serving the world’s essential infrastructure

See how we were built for a world where industrial operations are becoming more complex, more connected, and more critical.

Octave began with the idea that the world’s industrial and infrastructure customers require a different approach to thrive in a rapidly changing world. As we begin our newest chapter, Octave provides the software and simulation tools to power the world’s most essential infrastructure.

Mission-critical systems and facilities across the globe are grappling with greater uncertainty and growing complexity across their operations, and these internal issues are compounded by external forces accelerating disruption. Global economic shocks, unprecedented infrastructure investment and technology shifts are upending how many industries operate.

Seizing the data opportunity

For the systems and infrastructure we rely on to power our lives, keep the economy growing and protect our communities, the stakes have never been higher. We’ve all seen the articles about the ballooning need for new infrastructure. Companies are pouring trillions of dollars into facility development to keep pace with the continuing growth of AI. By 2030, global spending on data centers could very well reach $7 trillion.

But we wanted to look past the headlines and probe deeper into how companies are facing swift change. What follows is a sneak peek at some research we conducted from senior leaders spanning multiple asset-intensive industries across the globe. We’re sharing a handful of advanced insights that underscore what Octave is here to solve for.

Breaking down information barriers

The last twelve months have exposed that no industry is immune to global economic and technological risks. Both are spreading across the global economy, leaving boards and leaders to grapple with unanticipated challenges.

The bigger question is: With more tools at their disposal, are companies taking advantage of modeling tech for risks and dependencies to guide their mitigation strategies?

The survey revealed that just 21% of represented organizations are looking beyond the walls of their organization and pulling in a range of external factors. These leaders are fully unifying their data pools to map their own assets against the ever-changing global outlook.

Meanwhile, 50% have made partial progress along these lines, incorporating some external elements (environmental readings, for one) while lacking a complete assessment of trade and other economic inputs.

Another 29% concern themselves solely with internal data.Only 1 in 5 respondents can claim end-to-end scenario planning and modeling, a low figure that presents a prime opportunity for improvement. But whether or not an organization takes action to embrace these integrations comes down to their perception of risk.

Understanding gaps in risk assessment

With technology evolving at a faster cadence than ever, assessing risk is a must for the industrial space. Asked to what extent the risks facing their organization changed in the last three years, 49% answered that their risks have remained “unchanged” while 51% answered that the risks were “different.

While this spread may appear to be split 50/50, it’s actually the average of sharply opposed demographic clusters. Whether by region or position, some small subgroups gave significantly higher rates of response that risks were “different” compared to the last three years, clashing drastically with others clustered on the lower end. Geopolitical disruption, trade volatility, and supply chain shocks have had varied effects in separate markets, and they’re coloring the nation-by-nation picture of risk.

But risk awareness doesn’t always translate to action on investment. Among respondents from Japan, a survey-leading rate of 79% “different” risks strikes a noteworthy contrast with a 39% rate of response that economic conditions have made their organization more inclined to adopt connected data platforms, the survey’s lowest. Anything from procurement norms to data maturity to internal political capital can influence this disparity.

Preserving today’s infrastructure

So much of the conversation around the AI buildout has focused on what’s new: the features, the use cases, and the billions in capital investment to build the physical infrastructure to support AI. While those make for flashy press releases and headlines, our findings show that industrial organizations are more focused on maintaining and building onto existing facilities.

Only 19% of survey respondents selected “building new facilities” as their organization’s primary focus in infrastructure investment, indicating a cautious approach to large capital expenditures. Consider the converse: 81% would rather concentrate efforts on either preserving or building outward from the facilities already in place rather than working from the ground-up.Getting more from existing facilities presents a distinct challenge for organizations, compared to building brand-new. It means working through legacy systems, outdated data and workflows to compete in a fast-moving world.

Embracing Platform Adoption

As complexity and uncertainty multiply, businesses are looking for better ways to make sense of all the data and insights they’ve collected from across operations. The survey found that more companies are recognizing that connection as the key to staying ahead in the future.

The survey found that 60% of respondents described their organization as “more inclined to adopt” connected data platforms for full visibility as a result of unpredictable economic fluctuations. Most strikingly, this readiness to adopt is consistent across roles, with IT and operations positions both following roughly the same rate of “more inclined” responses between 55-70%.

The takeaway is clear: the industrial sector has woken up to the paramount importance of a robust tech layer to organize and manage large, unstructured banks of data. From here, the next step is moving to harness the solutions for the obstacles ahead before they can turn into problems not so simply resolved. As Octave, that’s exactly where we’re making our impact.