Manufacturers increasingly operate a mixture of historians, MES platforms, industrial data systems and analytics tools. These platforms may already collect valuable operational information, yet each often exposes it through a different application programming interface (API). The result is familiar: every new application can require another custom integration.
On 18 June 2026, CESMII announced the 1.0 release of Industrial Information Interoperability eXchange (i3X), an open, vendor-agnostic API specification designed to make contextualised manufacturing information easier for applications to discover and use across compliant platforms.
What i3X does and where its limits lie
i3X defines a common API for accessing contextualised manufacturing information. Instead of requiring application developers to learn a different interface for every supporting platform (ERP, CMMS, PLM, SCADA…), it establishes a shared set of operations for discovery, navigation and data access.
It is important not to confuse i3X with an existing PLC communication protocol, a message broker or a Unified Namespace architecture. A manufacturer still needs reliable source connectivity, useful information models, governance and appropriate platform capabilities. On the contrary, i3X addresses the application-facing interoperability layer, and determines how consumers interact with contextualised information exposed by compliant systems.
What the 1.0 release includes
According to CESMII, the release provides a normative implementation guide and OpenAPI specification, together with a conformance test suite. It also includes an updated i3X Explorer, a Python client library, an MCP server and software development documentation.
The API supports operations such as discovering namespaces and object types, retrieving instances, navigating relationships, querying current and historical values, subscribing to changes and events, and updating information where permissions allow. These capabilities are intended to make manufacturing applications more portable across systems that implement the specification.
Why manufacturers should pay attention
Consider a reporting or analytics application that needs equipment context, current operating values and relationships between assets. In a fragmented environment, the developers may build a different adapter for each information platform. However, a common interface offers the possibility of reusing more of that application when the underlying compliant platform changes.
That is an interesting novel architectural direction, particularly for organisations managing multiple plants or heterogeneous technology stacks. However, the value and level of interoperability depend on real conformance, consistent information semantics, suitable cybersecurity approach and the needs of each plant.
How i3X relates to UNS and information modelling
A UNS approach can help organise and distribute industrial information, but this is not enough.
It is where i3X complements UNS because it standardises how applications can access contextualised information through a common API.
What to evaluate before adopting i3X
Manufacturers should begin with a concrete use case and check whether their chosen platforms support the relevant i3X 1.0 capabilities. The official conformance tooling is a useful starting point, but teams should also test security, performance, data meaning and operational behaviour in their own environment.
A bounded experiment could ask whether one application can discover the same class of equipment information from two compliant platforms without application logic specific to either platform. Document what is genuinely portable, what still requires mapping and what remains dependent on vendor implementation.
The FactoVia perspective on testing i3X before production
i3X is a new open standard and it gives the trend of where the industry is heading. At FactoVia, we deployed two projects in a pilot phase, to help us understand the limits both in terms of technology, and in terms of features. i3X can reduce complexity, costs and unnecessary dependence on proprietary interfaces, but it is not a substitute for architecture decisions. FactoVia’s approach is to help industrial teams examine the business question, the information model and the evidence required before wider deployment. In a safe Lab setting, we turn interoperability claims into observable tests rather than assuming that a promising specification solves every integration problem.
From the keynote stage to the factory floor
In 2018, at Microsoft Experiences, Vincent took part in a keynote alongside senior Microsoft leadership. His live demo showed a real SNCF / ALTAMETRIS use case: an AI model trained in the cloud, then deployed to run at the edge, inside a drone.
The stakes were unusual: about 4,000 people in the room, around 200,000 watching online, and half a dozen Microsoft executives following from backstage. The challenge was to show a complex technology on a real use case without losing a non-specialist audience. If the audience can’t follow, the technology doesn’t matter.
Vincent and his team bring the same discipline to every FactoVia Lab deployed for large multinational customers. Whether a team is considering i3X, a UNS, a new data model, a Digital Twin or the latest AI, they should first be able to see how it works in a practical way and build their own self-conviction.
This is a professional background reference: Microsoft has not endorsed FactoVia or i3X.
