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The report highlights a broader shift towards more connected manufacturing systems 

PORTO, Portugal, 25.03.2026 – Critical Manufacturing, the Industrial Operations Platform company that unites execution, connectivity, analytics and trusted AI, and a subsidiary of ASMPT, has been named a Representative Vendor in the Gartner Market Guide for Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). The report points to the continued shift in manufacturing systems toward more connected and data-driven models as operational requirements grow, with increasing focus on the role of AI and more open, interoperable approaches to managing production systems.

According to Gartner, MES remains central to digital manufacturing, with vendors evolving their offerings to meet changing business and production needs, including greater emphasis on integration, flexibility, and platform-based capabilities.

Francisco Almada Lobo, CEO and Co-founder of Critical Manufacturing, said, “We are pleased to be recognized in the Gartner Market Guide for MES. In our opinion this reflects our continued focus on helping manufacturers succeed in highly demanding and regulated industries now and in the future. We continue to evolve our solution embedding the latest technologies such as AI on a strong foundation that manufacturers can trust to make digital transformation effective and profitable.”

As manufacturing becomes more intricate, organizations are placing greater emphasis on how their systems improve visibility, coordination, and decision-making. Critical Manufacturing addresses these needs through its Industrial Operations Platform approach, where MES serves as the execution core within a broader framework that brings together production, data, and intelligence.

“Manufacturing is no longer just about controlling processes on the shopfloor. It is about turning production data into meaningful, timely decisions that improve performance across the entire operation,” added Almada Lobo. “We are seeing a clear shift away from isolated systems toward environments where execution, data, and intelligence continuously inform each other. That is what enables manufacturers to respond faster, operate with greater clarity, and remain competitive in increasingly complex markets.”

Within this approach, MES plays a central role in capturing and contextualizing manufacturing data, which is then linked with analytics and enterprise systems to create a continuous flow of information between the shopfloor and business decision-makers.

Critical Manufacturing continues to advance its solution for high-tech industries such as semiconductors, electronics, medical devices and life sciences, and industrial equipment. Recent enhancements include improved batch management with lot matching, resource cluster services for multi-chamber equipment, and more detailed labor tracking at the activity level. Additional capabilities such as flexible BOM management, advanced substrate mapping, and smart barcode scanning further strengthen control and traceability across manufacturing processes.

The platform has also been extended with improvements to line clearance and maintenance management for reusable spare parts, alongside new reporting capabilities through tools such as Grafana and Stimulsoft. The introduction of Unified Namespace streaming via MQTT, combined with a centralized enterprise data platform, provides broader visibility across multiple sites.

At the same time, Critical Manufacturing is advancing its AI roadmap through initiatives spanning machine learning and generative AI to more advanced autonomous systems. These capabilities are embedded within the MES and data platform to enable contextual understanding, predictive insights, and more efficient workflows for both operators and decision-makers.

The report also encourages manufacturers to assess how MES solutions will meet future needs, including integration with other systems, responsiveness to changing processes, and the ability to scale across sites. For organizations operating in complex sectors, selecting solutions aligned with specific operational requirements can help reduce implementation effort while preserving long-term flexibility.

With customers across APAC, EMEA, and North America, Critical Manufacturing works with manufacturers in sectors where traceability, quality, and responsiveness are essential. By bringing together MES, data, analytics, and AI within a unified platform, the company helps manufacturers build more resilient, transparent, agile and future-ready operations.

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Aviator Airport Alliance, the largest independent ground handling provider in the Nordics and part of Avia Solutions Group, has joined Swedavia’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) procurement initiative, resulting in a significant reduction in emissions from its business travel.

Through this initiative, Aviator Sweden has reduced approximately 50% of emissions from its business travel in 2025.

“As part of our continued climate efforts, we at Aviator Sweden have invested in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) through Swedavia’s recently completed SAF auction,” said Jonas Brundin, Managing Director of Aviator Sweden. “Investing in SAF is a concrete way for us to contribute to the development of more sustainable aviation – something we see as essential for the future of transportation.”

Sustainable Aviation Fuel can reduce lifecycle CO₂e by up to 80% compared to conventional jet fuel and can be used within existing aircraft and infrastructure. This approach reduces emissions at the source, rather than relying solely on traditional offsetting.

Starting from December 1, 2025, Aviator Sweden’s own ground handling operations are fully fossil-free. The SAF investment marks a further step in extending emission reduction efforts beyond direct operations and supports Aviator’s broader ambition to achieve carbon-neutral ground handling by 2030.

New Delhi, Mar 25: In a significant initiative by NABARD New Delhi Regional Office to strengthen district‑level credit planning, the Potential Linked Credit Plan (PLP) 2026–27 for North East Delhi was formally unveiled by Shri Ajay Kumar, IAS, DM–North East Delhi, at the DCC/DLRC meeting on 25 March 2026.

The event was graced by Shri Kamlesh Kumar, IAS, Addl. DM-Northeast Delhi, and attended by Shri Anupam Maity, LDO, RBI, Shri Rohit Kumar, LDM, Punjab National Bank, other senior officials from RBI, representatives from various banks, SULM, and officials from government departments.

DDM (North East Delhi) from NABARD – Ms. Anita Meena highlighted that the total credit potential for Priority Sectors in North East Delhi is estimated at ₹1,295.04 crore for 2026–27. She noted that despite rapid urbanization and a declining agricultural base, the district has considerable scope for targeted financial interventions, especially in MSME financing, green and renewable energy, digital financial inclusion, and support to urban livelihoods.

As part of the programme, the district also celebrated International Women’s Day with the theme “Give to Gain”, recognizing the contribution of Self‑Help Group (SHG) women. A brief felicitation event was organized showcasing the achievements of SHGs in entrepreneurship, digital adoption, and community leadership.

Shri Ajay Kumar, IAS, DM Northeast Delhi appreciated NABARD’s efforts in preparing a comprehensive credit planning document and urged banks to improve PSL performance and expand formal credit access to underserved communities. He called for closer coordination among all stakeholders to promote inclusive, gender‑responsive, and sustainable development in the district.

COMAU AND REIS ROBOTICS SIGN A COOPERATION AGREEMENT TO PURSUE ADVANCED AUTOMATION PROJECTS ACROSS MULTIPLE INDUSTRIES

Stuttgart, March 25, 2026 – Comau and Reis Robotics have signed a cooperation agreement aimed at jointly developing and delivering advanced automation products and solutions for multiple industrial sectors through a coordinated technical and commercial approach.

The agreement signed today by Comau and Reis Robotics, respectively Italian and German companies, testifies to the strength of the European technology framework in advanced industrial development. The initiative brings together the complementary expertise and experience of both companies to design and deliver integrated complex systems that improve efficiency, flexibility, and scalability, with the initial focus on sectors such as shipbuilding, intralogistics, giga casting, battery production, heavy industry and critical infrastructure, among others.

The cooperation combines Reis Robotics’ proprietary control technology, and multi-process automation with Comau’s global industrial footprint and advanced automated solutions and robotics portfolio. A further element of the agreement sees Comau and Reis Robotics working together to identify and develop additional market segments and technical applications where their combined expertise can generate value.

“Working together with Reis Robotics is an important element in our diversification strategy and a further demonstration of our pledge to bring advanced automation technologies to new sectors and applications,” emphasized Pietro Gorlier, CEO of Comau. “The synergy that comes from uniting our shared expertise, allows us to pro-actively meet the evolving needs of the market,  where automation is becoming an increasingly key factor, and to strengthen our presence in Germany in particular, which represents a key market for us.”

“The cooperation with Comau represents a strategically important step in strengthening our international business and expanding our capabilities in key industrial sectors,” said Uwe Eich, Managing Director of Reis Robotics. “By combining our expertise in system integration and automation with Comau’s global reach, we are well positioned to deliver efficient and scalable solutions to our customers.”

Paris & São Paulo – 25 March 2026 – Qair, an independent renewable energy company, and Ultragaz, Brazil’s largest LPG distributor, announce the signing of a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the Bom Jardim solar project. Located in Icó (Ceará), the 192 MW project was fully commissioned earlier this year, supporting Brazil’s ongoing diversification of its renewable energy mix, and will supply 131.5 GWh of renewable electricity annually to Ultragaz, reinforcing Qair’s ability to create value in a dynamic market environment.

Addressing market dynamics with innovation
In Brazil’s evolving renewable energy landscape, Qair’s proactive approach ensures long-term benefits for its partners and local communities. By diversifying its portfolio, selecting sites with robust grid infrastructure, and designing flexible PPA structures, Qair continues to deliver sustainable, high-performance energy solutions tailored to Brazil’s evolving needs.

Modelling consumer-centric renewables
This agreement between Qair and Ultragaz sets a new standard for how renewable energy contracts can be structured to maximize value for all stakeholders. By aligning Qair’s expertise in innovative energy solutions with Ultragaz’s strategic objectives, the Bom Jardim project delivers not just electricity, but a pathway to long-term energy security and shared success.

This agreement marks a significant step in our capacity of leading the energy transition in the Brazilian private sector and also in our collaboration with local partners like Qair.

Lucas Witzler, Energy Director for Ultragaz

Bom Jardim demonstrates Qair’s ability to combine energy performance and sustainable development. Thanks to the expertise of our local teams we are delivering solutions that drive value to all partners. Looking forward for the next achievements.

Camille Donnadieu

Industrial Partnerships Director for Qair

Stamford, Conn., Mar 25: By 2030, performing inference on a large language model (LLM) with one trillion parameters will cost GenAI providers over 90% less than it did in 2025, according to Gartner, Inc. a business and technology insights company. 

AI tokens are the units of data that GenAI models process. For the purposes of this analysis a token is 3.5 bytes of data, or approximately 4 characters. 

“These cost improvements will be driven by a combination of semiconductor and infrastructure efficiency improvements, model design innovations, higher chip utilization, increased use of inference-specialized silicon, and application of edge devices for specific use cases,” said Will Sommer, Sr. Director Analyst at Gartner. 

As a result of these trends, Gartner forecasts LLMs in 2030 will be up to 100 times more cost-efficient than the earliest models of similar size developed in 2022. 

The forecasted model results are split between two sets of semiconductor scenarios:

• Frontier scenarios: Model processing is based on a representation of cutting edge chips.
• Legacy blend scenarios: Model processing is based on a representative blend of available semiconductors benchmarked to Gartner forecasts. 

Modeled costs in the “blend” forecast scenarios are considerably higher than in the “frontier” scenarios, given lower computational power (see Figure 1). 

Falling Token Costs will not Democratize Frontier Intelligence

However, falling GenAI provider token costs will not be fully passed on to enterprise customers. Moreover, frontier intelligence will demand significantly more tokens than current mainstream applications. Agentic models, for example, require between 5-30 times more tokens per task than a standard GenAI chatbot, and can perform many more tasks than a human using GenAI. 

While lower token unit costs will enable more advanced GenAI capabilities, these advancements will drive disproportionately higher token demand. As token consumption rises faster than token costs fall, overall inference costs are expected to increase. 

“Chief Product Officers (CPOs) should not confuse the deflation of commodity tokens with the democratization of frontier reasoning,” said Sommer. “As commoditized intelligence trends toward near-zero cost, the compute and systems needed to support advanced reasoning remain scarce. CPOs who mask architectural inefficiencies with cheap tokens today will find agentic scale elusive tomorrow.” 

Value will accrue to platforms that can orchestrate workloads across a diverse portfolio of models. Routine, high-frequency tasks must be routed to more efficient small and domain-specific language models, which perform better than generic solutions at a fraction of the cost when aligned to specialized workflows. Expensive inference of frontier-level models must be heavily gated and reserved exclusively for high-margin, complex reasoning tasks. 

Gartner clients can read more in Navigating the Commoditization Trap as Token Costs Fall by Over 90% Through 2030 and Frontier Scale Models Threaten Software Margins and Solvency.

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