One of many highlights for the more than 2,800 attendees at Emerson Exchange 2025 in San Antonio this week was the three-day event’s 90 technical booths in a 30,000-square-foot exhibit space. They exhibited hundreds—if not thousands—of products, software and services divided among the major industries and seven product segments, including: asset optimization and performance management, control and safety systems, expertise and best practices, industry solutions, measurement instrumentation, operations management software, and valves, actuators and regulators.
A guided press tour of nine core exhibits showcased numerous process industry trends and challenges, and the solutions that Emerson and its Impact Partners are implementing to help their customers solve them.
Power, water, and digital grid management
For example, Emerson’s Ovation automation platform presently automates about 1.8 million megawatts (MW) of power generation worldwide, or about 20% of global generating capacity, including about half of all production in North America. However, it’s estimated that an additional 362 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity will be needed worldwide by 2035, including 47,000 MW to support U.S. data centers.
To help satisfy this swelling demand for electricity, Robert Yeager, president of power and water solutions at Emerson, reported it will release Ovation 4.0 on May 30, along with several support technologies, including its OMC 100 Grid Edge controller with high-speed I/O, and cybersecurity software time-synchronized down to the millisecond for easier troubleshooting.
“Ovation 4.0 and OMC 100 bring 40 million lines of code to the edge and are AI-enabled with local versions of large-language models (LLM) for individual plants and field services integrated into the control system,” said Yeager. “This is going to change how power plants are run. It’s amazing how users can employ these LLMs and integrate them with years of historical data from their valves and transmitters. LLMs will become the smartest entity in their facilities, tell users what’s going on, interact with them, ask what they’re worried about, and recommend additional remedies. Even if the process says everything is OK, local LLMs will be able to show personnel what they’re not seeing.”
Streamlining drug development
Similarly, Emerson, and its Aspen Technology business are collaborating to help their customers make pharmaceutical development more efficient. “Making new drugs and new applications is very difficult and takes too long from early research and clinical trials to commercial and contract manufacturing,” said Nikki Bishop, VP of marketing for life sciences at Emerson. “DeltaV Life Sciences software enables drug development from lab to life, while users also get an assist from our DeltaV Process Knowledge Management (PKM) and DeltaV Manufacturing Execution System (MES) offerings that let them manage more tasks digitally. Just a few clicks, and users no longer have to deal with truckloads of paper.”
Likewise, Bishop reported that Emerson’s DeltaV Tech Transfer Hub can be used to greatly simplify transfer of relevant recipe information to the DeltaV distributed control system and DeltaV MES.
Non-intrusive, ultrasonic flow
Following its acquisition by Emerson 18 months ago, Flexim exhibited multiple non-intrusive, ultrasonic flow products at Emerson Exchange 2025, including:
- Emerson’s Flexim FLUXUS F731 non-intrusive ultrasonic liquid flow meter that can now switch from transit-time to Doppler measurement when it encounters multiple phases in the stream it’s measuring, according to Nik Martinov, Flexim sales director.
- WaveInjector for Emerson’s FLUXUS F731 and transmitter service in extreme temperatures from -320 °F to 1,300 °F.
- Emerson’s Flexim FLUXUS F601 portable non-intrusive liquid flow meter, which has portability features that are also available on many other Flexim products.
Pervasive sensing for IIoT
To extend wireless IIoT communications to more and smaller devices on a more granular level, Emerson exhibited its Synchros IIoT fit-for-purpose sensors that integrate seamlessly with control networks and enable more intelligent operations, according to Tom Bass, pervasive sensing director at Emerson. They’ll be launched in October and will include temperature sensors with WirelessHART protocol or long-range, wide area network (LoRaWAN) communication modules that speak MQTT and other common IIoT protocols.
Software-defined networking and control
Further expanding the capabilities of its DeltaV distributed control system, Emerson has evolved its control system for IT-ready service, including software-defined networking (SDN) and control on a server that it plans to launch shortly.
“We created a controller template that can run deterministic control via a redundant Ethernet link. This software-defined control is also the backbone of our upcoming DeltaV IQ controller,“ said Dave Denison, technology VP for process systems and solutions at Emerson.
This solution includes an integrated, virtualized environment based on DeltaV Virtual Studio control software for managed environments, which runs on DeltaV Virtualization Hardware for Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI). It also features easy, guided set-up of virtual machines (VMs) running inside its servers and drag-and-drop commissioning capability directly to I/O connections for easier configuration.
“Regular, hardware-based controllers do their overall commissioning tasks in layers, including real-time control, processing and redundancy,” added Denison. “With software-defined control, we’re encapsulating all of these tasks into a virtual machine (VM) deployed in an IT-based server.”
Digital valve controllers
Alerts are only useful if they can reach users—and if those users can understand them. So, Emerson is adding Bluetooth links and readily understandable alerts to its FIELDVUE DVC Series digital valve controllers starting in October.
“They’ll also provide recommended actions, pointing users to the correct next steps,” said Ken Hall, senior program manager for Fisher instrumentation at Emerson. “Next year, we’ll also have online diagnostics embedded in the actuator.”
Pressure-relief valves
Because they’re the last line of defense in pressurized systems, pressure-relief valves (PRV) can always benefit from improved monitoring and flexibility, which can also help them comply with environmental and safety regulations. Emerson exhibited the Anderson Greenwood 400 Series pilot-operated valves that modulate, only releasing as much material as needed, rather than simply snapping open.
PRVs can be monitored through a range of Emerson software and systems, including Plantweb Insight, AMS Device Manager and the DeltaV DCS. “Monitoring used to be simpler years ago because the available indications were mostly just open or closed. Now, monitoring is more complex because users want to know what volume is going through their valves based on inputs from the transmitters,” explained Adam Attig, business development manager for valves and monitoring at Emerson. “This is why we’ve been adding transmitters to our PRV portfolio that includes position transmitters, bellows for leak detection, and pilot valves for differential pressure measurements.”
Industrial AI in action
At its industrial artificial intelligence (AI) exhibit, Emerson reported that its industrial AI program has two missions: design and engineering for configuring and deploying its systems, and operations and maintenance for keeping production going. It also featured Guardian AI enterprise-support software and a new virtual advisor that users can log into to view asset performance.
The exhibit also featured on-screen avatars, who could be asked questions like, “How can I show P&I diagrams?” The avatars respond with practical advice, such as recommending the upload of DeltaV Live elements.
“We’re using AI to build trust by keeping operators in control,” said Heiko Claussen, chief technologist for AspenTech offerings at Emerson. “This happens in three areas: using AI agility to bridge the gap between simulation and reality; using it for guidance to avoid bottlenecks; and integrating automation for greater efficiency.“
Enterprise operations platform
In its pivotal Project Beyond booth, Emerson demonstrated how its enterprise operations platform integrates with its multi-protocol, electronic-marshaling functions, and also works with its DeltaV IQ software-defined controllers that will be launched in July. This is helpful because while each traditional hardware controller can handle up to 1,500 I/O points, each DeltaV IQ controller in the Emerson HCI can run up to 36,000 I/O on a pair of servers.
“In the 1990s, a typical processing unit might need 100 cabinets. In 2011, electronic marshaling reduced that number to 15 or 20. Now, everything can be run redundantly on two pairs of servers. The first pair runs the workstations and plant, and the second runs DeltaV SDN and the DeltaV IQ controllers,” said Camilo Fadul, DeltaV solutions market director at Emerson. “This demonstration completely integrates field devices, such as our Fisher valves and positioners, networks them via HART protocol to DeltaV DCS, and helps configure them for data exchange and control.”
