Commercial real estate giant CBRE has entered into a strategic relationship with artificial intelligence software company Litbit to train a system to help with facilities maintenance.

CBRE will train a Litbit AI persona named ‘REMI’ (Risk Exposure Mitigation Intelligence) on the normal operating conditions of its data center facilities and equipment globally.

Exact plans, or the scale of the roll out were not revealed, but the companies claimed that the partnership would create the world’s largest actionable AI repository of machine operating data. In a presentation last November at DCD Zettastructure, Noteboom detailed the aspirational plans of his AI system for the data center.

CBRE
– Sebastian Moss/DCD

AI for the data center

“CBRE is the perfect example of a company whose operating model can be transformed by artificial intelligence,” Noteboom said in a statement.

“Their global scale, varied client base, and mission critical remit mean that they need complete flexibility of implementation, massive scalability, and a completely noninvasive way of implementing AI.”

REMI will run both in the cloud via smartphone and on the edge through permanently deployed computing devices. It aims to aggregate the knowledge of CBRE’s worldwide service experience, thousands of technicians, and millions of machines into one system. CBRE currently manages more than 800 data centers.

Paul Saville-King, the company’s Data Center Solutions president, added: “Artificial intelligence is transforming industries in all parts of the economy. CBRE has always had a commitment to using technology to provide better results for our customers at optimal cost to value, and we believe this technology will allow us to further this agenda.

“The idea that expert knowledge of all the facilities, assets and equipment we manage can be in the back pocket of every CBRE technician is exciting and revolutionary.”

Litbit signed a similar partnership with Root Data Center, with that persona known as Aiex.