Schneider Electric acquires Cognite for $3.1bn to control the industrial AI data layer

Schneider buys industrial-AI firm Cognite for $3.1bn

The French energy giant is paying all cash for Cognite, a Norwegian-founded industrial AI platform, and folding it into Aveva. The bet: whoever controls the factory's data layer controls the factory. Schneider Electric is buying Cognite, a Norwegian-founded industrial AI company, for $3.1bn in cash. The French group wants software that can make factories and power grids think for themselves. Schneider Electric said on June 30, 2026 that it had agreed to acquire all of Cognite in an all-cash deal worth $3.1bn. Cognite builds software that pulls messy industrial data into one place and lets AI act on it. Schneider plans to fold the company into Aveva, its own industrial software arm. The purchase tracks a shift in what industrial AI does. For years it simply described life inside a plant, flagging a fault or charting output. Now it increasingly decides and acts. Schneider wants to own that move. "Cognite has built something rare, a truly industrial grade AI platform," chief executive Olivier Blum said. He framed the deal as a way to put Schneider "at the centre of the next phase of industrial intelligence." What Cognite brings A group of founders started Cognite in 2017. The company now employs more than 800 people across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. Its platform pairs a unified data model and a knowledge graph with newer agentic AI tools. In plain terms, it cleans and connects the data pouring off machines. AI agents then run analysis and automate workflows on top of it. Two products sit at the core. Data Fusion handles the messy job of modelling and contextualising engineering and operational data. Atlas AI adds the generative and agentic layer that automates tasks and speeds up decisions. On a factory floor, that can mean an agent spotting a failing pump, ordering the part, and scheduling the repair, with a human signing off. Schneider will bind both products to Aveva's CONNECT platform, the Cambridge-based software unit it already owns. It wants one system to span the design, operation, and optimisation of industrial assets. Cognite has aimed its tools at asset-heavy industries such as oil and gas, power generation, and manufacturing. These sectors sit on decades of data they have rarely used well. The pitch turns that backlog into something an AI agent can read and act on. The same market draws data-software firms such as Palantir, which makes the race for the industrial data layer a crowded one. The business grows quickly. Revenue passed $170mn in 2025, and recurring bookings rose 36 per cent. Cognite's owners do well from the sale. Norway's Aker, the investment firm that helped start the company in 2017, expects about $1.48bn in cash proceeds, including the settlement of a convertible loan, according to Bloomberg. A European bet on the factory floor The deal lands in the middle of a European push. Manufacturers across the region keep adding AI to their plants to lift efficiency and cut waste. Schneider's rival Siemens chases the same shop-floor market. For Europe, industrial AI remains one of the few areas where the continent still holds an edge over the United States and China. Firms race to defend it. Blum tied the logic back to energy. The energy transition demands intelligence, he argued, intelligence demands data, and unlocking that data demands AI. Schneider sells the hardware that runs the physical world. Cognite gives it the software to make that hardware smarter. Schneider also counts as a quiet winner of the wider AI boom. Its shares have climbed 26 per cent in a year to record highs, as investors back the companies that supply the boom's plumbing. It sells energy and cooling kit to the data centres that train and run AI models. That business grows fast, including in markets such as India. Buying the software is the next step. Rather than build an industrial AI platform from scratch, Schneider does what many large firms now do, and snaps up a company that already has one. France has pushed hard to grow its own AI sector, from startups to state spending. Schneider ranks as the country's fourth-largest company by value, worth about €165bn. The catch The deal has not closed yet. It still needs regulatory clearance, and the companies expect it to complete in the coming quarters. Industrial software remains a crowded field, and European software investors keep a close watch on which platforms win. Schneider is betting that whoever controls the data layer will control the factory. If the bet works, Schneider gets to sell both the hardware and the brain that runs it. "We give them the ability to think, adapt, and act," Blum said of the company's systems. The promise is large. The proof will come on real factory floors, once the deal closes and the slow work of folding Cognite into Aveva begins.

Schneider Electric buys industrial AI company Cognite for $3.1bn

Upon completion of the deal, the French energy services giant will combine Cognite with its own industrial software business, Aveva. Schneider Electric has agreed to acquire industrial data and AI software company Cognite in an all-cash transaction worth $3.1bn. Upon completion of the deal - which will see Schneider acquire 100pc of Cognite's share capital - the French energy services giant will combine Cognite with its own industrial software business, Aveva. Specifically, Schneider plans to integrate Cognite's capabilities into Connect, Aveva's cloud-based industrial intelligence platform, which uses a suite of shared software services to "achieve rapid and reliable integration" of industrial data, models, applications, and AI and analytics. Cognite, founded in 2016 by Geir Engdahl, John Markus Lervik and Stein Danielsen, specialises in industrial software to improve production efficiency in areas such as energy and process manufacturing, among others. Last year, the company's annual revenue exceeded $170m. Originally headquartered in Oslo, Norway, Cognite - which currently employs more than 800 people globally - moved its HQ to Arizona in the US in 2025. "Cognite has built something rare, a truly industrial grade AI platform that turns the complexity of operational data into a competitive advantage," said Schneider Electric CEO Olivier Blum. "By bringing Cognite into Schneider Electric and AVEVA, we unite the world's most comprehensive energy management and automation infrastructure with the software and AI capabilities to make it natively intelligent." The acquisition is expected to be completed "in the coming quarters" according to Cognite, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Schneider's acquisition of Cognite comes amid an increased focus on industrial AI in Europe. In April, Siemens CEO Roland Busch and German chancellor Friedrich Merz both called for eased EU regulations for industrial AI. In a speech at the Hannover Messe trade fair, Merz warned that if Europe is to boost productivity, industrial AI will need more regulatory freedom than, for example, consumer AI. "I will push to ease the regulatory burden ⁠in the EU on AI and, where possible, to exempt industrial AI from the current regulatory straitjacket that is too tight for AI within the European Union," he said at the time. Meanwhile, Busch warned in an interview at the event that Siemens would prioritise investments in the US and China if the EU did not lighten its regulations in a sector he said is already subject to sector-specific regulations. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Why is Schneider Electric stock sliding today? By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Shares of Schneider Electric fell 2.4% to trade at €278.5 during today's session after the company announced a definitive agreement to acquire Cognite Holding, a privately held provider of industrial AI software and data solutions, in a $3.1 billion all-cash deal signed on June 30, 2026. The market's immediate reaction was negative, with investors questioning whether the price tag -- implying an enterprise value roughly 18 times Cognite's 2025 revenues -- can be justified given Schneider's own valuation multiple of approximately 4.5 times sales. Analyst commentary offered only partial reassurance. JPMorgan reiterated its Overweight rating and maintained a €335 price target, but flagged the acquisition valuation as very rich, noting the deal adds only a modest contribution to group sales while meaningfully increasing leverage. Bernstein similarly kept its Buy stance with a €310 target, yet raised questions about the deal's pricing and the broader track record of Schneider's prior software acquisitions in terms of value creation. Bank of America lifted its price target to €330, but that positive note was overshadowed by the valuation debate. Schneider also launched a €1.5 billion dual-tranche bond offering to help fund the transaction, adding to balance sheet concerns. The broader European backdrop provided little cushion. The pan-European STOXX 600 index slipped 0.3% today, pausing after its strongest quarterly performance since October 2020, with sentiment dampened by stalled Iran-U.S. peace talks. Attention also turned to the ECB's Sintra conference, where ECB President Christine Lagarde and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh were expected to speak, with markets pricing in at least 25 basis points of rate increases from both central banks later this year -- a headwind for premium-valued industrial names. Taken together, a large and expensively priced acquisition announced after the prior session's close, compounded by a softer European market and rising rate expectations, created the conditions for today's pullback. The stock remains well above its 52-week low of €208.8, and the consensus among analysts stays constructive, but near-term sentiment is clearly weighed by the market's skepticism over the Cognite deal's price discipline. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

Aker surges after Schneider Electric agrees to buy Cognite for $3.1 bln By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Shares of Norway's Aker ASA jumped about 7% Wednesday after Schneider Electric agreed to acquire industrial data and AI software company Cognite for $3.1 billion in cash, handing the Norwegian investment firm a substantial return on a bet it placed nearly a decade ago. Schneider shares slipped as much as 2.6% in Paris trading by 07:42 GMT. Schneider said it would buy all of Cognite's outstanding shares from Aker and other investors, with plans to fold the business into Aveva, its existing industrial software unit. Aker, which helped found Cognite in 2017 and backed its growth since, said it expects to receive roughly $1.48 billion in cash proceeds from the sale, including the settlement of an outstanding convertible loan. The deal reflects the intensifying push among industrial companies to embed artificial intelligence into factory operations. Rivals including Siemens have been making similar moves, expanding into automation and AI tools for the shop floor as European manufacturers look to improve efficiency and cut costs. Schneider has been broadening its footprint beyond traditional energy-management equipment, increasingly supplying power and cooling infrastructure to data centers that underpin the global AI buildout. The Cognite acquisition extends that strategy into the software layer.

Schneider Electric slips after Cognite buyout despite analyst backing

With this acquisition, the French group aims to strengthen its position in industrial artificial intelligence by combining its energy management and automation businesses with Cognite's software capabilities. Founded in 2017, the company employs more than 800 people and develops a cloud-native platform designed to collect, contextualize and leverage industrial data via a unified data model, a knowledge graph and agentic AI features. Schneider Electric plans to integrate Cognite within Aveva, its subsidiary specializing in industrial software. The group believes the deal will bolster Aveva's Connect platform by adding advanced data contextualization and artificial intelligence capabilities, covering the full lifecycle of industrial assets, from design to operations and optimization. 'By integrating Cognite within Schneider Electric and Aveva, we are bringing together the world's most comprehensive infrastructure in energy management and automation with the software and AI capabilities needed to make it natively intelligent,' said Olivier Blum, CEO of Schneider Electric. The company generated revenue of more than $170m in 2025, driven by 36% growth in order intake in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and the success of its Atlas AI platform. The transaction remains subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to close over the coming quarters. Once completed, Cognite will be integrated into Aveva and consolidated within Schneider Electric's Industrial Automation business. Analysts stay confident Analysts see this acquisition as another illustration of Schneider Electric's strategy to build out its industrial software business. Alpha Value notes that integrating Cognite into Aveva is the most significant transaction Schneider Electric has completed to date to expand its industrial software offering, bringing the group closer to Siemens, whose software has long been a major competitive advantage. The research firm nonetheless argues it remains to be proven that agentic AI will emerge as the most effective approach to boost productivity and accelerate the digital transformation of industrial sites. For its part, RBC Europe is upbeat on the group's outlook. The broker raised its price target to 290 euros from 270 euros while reaffirming its 'outperform' rating. It forecasts average annual revenue growth of 9% between 2025 and 2030, at the top end of Schneider Electric's target range. According to RBC, the data center market will remain the main driver, with growth above 15% a year, accounting on its own for at least four points of the group's annual growth. Since the start of the year, Schneider shares are up nearly 20%.

Schneider Electric to Buy Cognite For $3.1 Billion

Schneider Electric said it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cognite Holding in an all-cash transaction valued at $3.1 billion. The French group on Tuesday said it intends to integrate the industrial artificial intelligence software company's data foundation into its own industrial software company, AVEVA. "[The deal] positions Schneider Electric at the centre of the next phase of industrial intelligence," Chief Executive Olivier Blum said. The transaction is anticipated to close in the coming quarters, after which Cognite will report within Schneider Electric's industrial automation division, it said.

Schneider signs a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Cognite

Schneider Electric announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Cognite Holding, a provider of industrial data and AI software. The acquisition is being completed through an all-cash transaction valued at $3.1bn. Cognite brings a cloud-native platform that combines a unified industrial data model with agentic AI capabilities, enabling customers to operationalize AI directly in plant operations, asset management and engineering workflows. Olivier Blum, Schneider Electric's Chief Executive Officer, said: "This acquisition strengthens AVEVA, Schneider Electric's wholly owned industrial software company, in the fastest-growing market segments and positions Schneider Electric at the heart of the next phase of industrial intelligence".