OREANDA-NEWS. GE (NYSE: GE) and American Water today announced they have formed a new digital initiative to identify and explore advances in the Industrial Internet of Things to help solve pressing challenges in the water industry and help lead the country toward a smarter water future.

GE is the world’s leading digital industrial company, and American Water is the nation's largest publicly traded water and wastewater utility company. Together, they are collaborating on a digital alliance that will enable the water industry to harness the power of data and analytics to improve national water infrastructure. The digital collaboration announcement is being made in conjunction with today’s World Water Day celebration.

The GE-American Water initiative will include the use of GE’s Predix*, the world’s first and only cloud platform built exclusively for industry that powers the Industrial Internet. The companies will collaborate to develop the next generation of software and data analytics solutions to help the industry reduce the environmental impacts and operating costs associated with water production, treatment, transportation and delivery.

“We are excited to launch our new digital collaboration with American Water by combining our collective expertise in software, water technologies and utility management to help the United States build a more sustainable and secure water future,” said Heiner Markhoff, president and CEO—water and distributed power for GE Power. “We are developing software, advanced predictive analytics and diagnostic tools that will give operators the real-time data they need to better manage their critical water infrastructure assets 24 hours a day.”

“These are critical times for our nation’s water infrastructure. For 130 years, American Water has been a trusted guardian of water sources and a leader in the industry, providing capital resources, research, innovation and new technologies,” said Susan Story, president and CEO, American Water. “We're proud to collaborate with GE in seeking new and innovative ways to use data analytics to continue our tradition of providing solutions to our nation’s water challenges.”