Software is changing everything. Led by big data and new applications, there is a digital transformation sweeping through the worlds of tech and business. This transformation has also come to the realm of heavy industry, where mighty engines and massive turbines supply the fuel and resources civilization consumes every day.

To better understand the transformation of industry, Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-host of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, visited the GE Minds + Machines conference in San Francisco, CA. There, he met up with Ganesh Bell, chief digital officer at GE Power.

The detail is in the data

The discussion started off with a look at how going digital helps a business. Bell explained that the biggest lever for productivity, efficiency and creating new value was found in digital transformation. It’s not just automation, but also creating new value and new revenue from digital assets.

“This is getting mainstream; everybody is looking at how does digital help their business,” Bell said.

The detail is in the data. Bell described it as software eating the world, but also transforming the world. He stated that physical assets matter, but those assets also generate data. A company can learn from that data to make its machines more productive, more efficient and to reduce downtime.

Heavy industry efficiency and optimization

There’s another upside to merging heavy machines and software. Bell mentioned how with advances in science and engineering, a company can get more out of their physical assets, but that requires a big upgrade cycle. Upgrading a machine with software improves the flexibility and efficiency of a machine.

The topic then moved toward the electrical business itself, where GE Power operates. Bell stated that GE knows how going digital turns a business into a network model. They have created what they call the Electricity Value Network to balance and optimize power from various sources like coal, nuclear and gas. He felt software was the silver bullet that will let this network optimize the production of electrons.

*Disclosure: GE and other companies sponsor some GE Minds + Machines segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither GE nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of GE Minds + Machines.

Photo by SiliconANGLE