ABB’s Corporate Research Centers in Germany and Sweden have been awarded the prestigious ITEA Award of Excellence 2025 in the Innovation category at a ceremony in Portugal on 16th of September 2025. The award recognizes the international EU-funded research project EXPLAIN, in which ABB collaborated with partners from three countries to develop pioneering methods aimed at making artificial intelligence (AI) transparent, reliable, and understandable for end users in process industries.
As part of the project, ABB’s Corporate Research Centers have demonstrated capabilities in managing complex AI technologies, highlighting the potential to translate advanced research into impactful solutions for the industrial partners in the future.
By combining cutting-edge AI research with strong industrial collaboration, the project has demonstrated how human-centered explainable AI (XAI) can empower operators and experts to trust, interact with, and even provide feedback to AI systems. This approach ensures that AI becomes a reliable and intuitive part of daily operations – not just a technical innovation, but a practical tool for real-world decision-making for industry.
ABB-driven use cases, developed within the EXPLAIN consortium and validated together with industrial partners, brought explainable AI into real-world operations:
In the pulp & paper industry, ABB and academic partners collaborated with Södra to improve pulp quality stability in the digester process, with a focus on explainability and user-centered design.
“Through EXPLAIN, Södra has gained additional opportunities to apply industrial AI,” said Andreas Darnell, Senior Development Engineer OT – Södra Cell Technology Development. “The project has highlighted the need to put people at the center to create the best conditions for trust and robustness. This has given us valuable methods and tools for the future.”
The next phase will focus on scaling the results to a broader range of industrial environments, amplifying the impact and enabling more efficient data-driven operations throughout process industries.
“We are extremely proud that our Research Centers have received this recognition,” said Dr. Jan-Henning Fabian, Head of ABB Research Center Germany. “This award shows the difference we can make when we combine world-leading technology and close collaboration with industry and academia. We have succeeded in showing how AI can be both understandable and useful – and thus create real benefits for our customers.”
About the EXPLAIN project:
- EXPLAIN stands for EXPLanatory interactive Artificial intelligence for INdustry.
- Duration: 2022–2025, with 15 partners from Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
- Germany: ABB Corporate Research, Eraneos, LEAG, The University of Hildesheim, and The Technical University of Darmstadt.
- Sweden: ABB Corporate Research, Boliden, Södra, Umeå University, Linköping University, and Viking Analytics.
- Netherlands: Delft University of Technology, MEK, Prodrive Technologies, and Signify.
- Results: new XAI methods, industry-tested prototypes, 70+ scientific contributions, and a public guidebook for explainable AI in process industries.
The EXPLAIN project has received financial funding and guidance from national agencies in all three participating countries:
- Germany: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR; 01IS22030)
- Sweden: Vinnova (2021-04336)
- Netherlands: Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO; AI2212001)
ABB acknowledges the support, which – together with the ITEA framework – has enabled this international collaboration.
