PepsiCo reimagines supply chain performance through digital twins and AI with Siemens
PepsiCo is transforming its global supply chain through an industry-first collaboration with Siemens and NVIDIA, using AI-powered digital twins to optimize operations and unlock hidden capacity. This digital-first approach is accelerating decision-making, reducing risk, and improving agility across manufacturing and logistics. Together, the partners are establishing a blueprint for a more intelligent, connected supply chain.
Key Takeaways
- PepsiCo achieved a 20% increase in throughput at one of their U.S. Gatorade plants within three months.
- The company estimates a 10-15% reduction in capital expenditures (CAPEX) by virtually validating designs and uncovering hidden capacity.
- An industry-first collaboration between PepsiCo, Siemens, and NVIDIA, announced at CES 2026, sets a new benchmark for industrial AI adoption.
- Siemens Digital Twin Composer, built on NVIDIA Omniverse, enables high-fidelity, real-time supply chain simulation and optimization.
- Digital twins compress facility design and optimization from months to days.
Managing complexity across a global supply chain
For PepsiCo, operating a “farm to shelf” supply chain at global scale presents extraordinary complexity. The company serves billions of consumers through billions of daily touchpoints across manufacturing plants, warehouses and distribution centers worldwide.
The core challenge isn’t simply capacity – it’s unlocking by uncovering previously inaccessible capacity within existing facilities. While some PepsiCo facilities are modernized, others are decades old, limiting flexibility and throughput. Building new capacity is costly, slow and cannot keep pace with changing market conditions.
Demand spikes, weather disruptions and unexpected events like tornadoes can instantly stress physical networks that weren’t designed for such volatility. The company needed a way to anticipate demand and adapt operations in real time.
When digital twins meet industrial AI
At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Siemens AG CEO Roland Busch and Athina Kanioura, PepsiCo’s CEO Latin America and Global Chief Strategy & Transformation Officer, announced a multi-year, industry-first collaboration to transform PepsiCo’s supply chain using digital twin technology and artificial intelligence. Central to this transformation is Siemens Digital Twin Composer, built on NVIDIA Omniverse libraries and available through the Siemens Xcelerator marketplace. Digital Twin Composer enables PepsiCo to create high-fidelity, photorealistic 3D representations of plants, warehouses and logistics flows. Unlike static models, these digital twins connect to real-time data – including engineering specifications, operational metrics and time-series machine data – allowing teams to:
- Analyze past performance
- Simulate future scenarios
- Optimize decisions before making physical changes
Supply chain optimization at speed and scale
For logistics and supply chain teams, the impact is significant. Using AI-powered simulation, PepsiCo can explore hundreds or thousands of potential facility layouts in a unified, immersive environment. Every machine, conveyor, pallet route and operator path can be recreated with physics-level accuracy. Tasks that previously took months – such as validating warehouse layouts or optimizing material flows – can now be completed in days. This capability allows PepsiCo to:
- Maximize throughput within existing facilities
- Identify bottlenecks early
- Validate investments virtually before committing capital
- Achieve near-complete design validation in the virtual world
Proven results: From pilot to production
As part of early U.S. deployments, PepsiCo deployed Digital Twin Composer at a Gatorade manufacturing plant. Within just three months, the facility achieved a 20% increase in throughput—a significant improvement that demonstrates the technology’s immediate impact. Across operations, PepsiCo estimates a 10% to 15% reduction in capital expenditures (CAPEX) by uncovering hidden capacity and validating designs virtually. This allows the company to optimize existing assets rather than investing in costly new construction.
Building an intelligent, connected network for the future
Beyond optimizing individual facilities, PepsiCo’s digital transformation strategy targets broader supply chain synchronization. By digitally transforming plants, warehouses, distribution centers and mixing centers, the company is moving toward a unified, intelligent network.
In this model, facilities don’t simply react to demand – they anticipate it. With a shared digital foundation, plants and warehouses can fine-tune operations in real time, aligning production, inventory and distribution more closely with customer needs. This level of synchronization is essential for serving customers efficiently, particularly in an environment where demand patterns change rapidly.
A new blueprint for supply chain excellence
As Kanioura noted during the CES 2026 keynote, this collaboration is just the beginning. The partnership with Siemens and NVIDIA establishes a digital blueprint for how supply chains can be designed, tested and scaled using industrial AI. For Siemens, the partnership demonstrates how digital twin technology, combined with real-time data and AI, enables customers to turn ideas into real-world impact – faster, with greater quality and efficiency.
For the food and beverage industry, PepsiCo’s journey illustrates a fundamental shift: supply chain excellence is no longer driven solely by physical assets, but by intelligent, connected digital systems that unlock their full potential. According to Siemens AG CEO Roland Busch, “the industrial metaverse is no longer a vision – it is becoming operational reality.”
What this means for supply chain professionals
PepsiCo’s digital twin implementation offers several lessons for supply chain leaders:
- Virtual validation reduces risk: Test facility changes digitally before committing capital
- Hidden capacity exists: Advanced simulation can find efficiency gains in existing assets
- Speed matters: Compress planning cycles from months to days
- Integration is key: Real-time data connectivity enables continuous optimization
- Physics-based modeling: Accurate simulations require detailed representation of physical operations
Learn more
- Watch the recording: “The Industrial AI Revolution: Siemens Keynote at CES 2026”
- Explore Siemens’ Digital Logistics portfolio
- Read Siemens press release: “Siemens brings the industrial metaverse to life with Digital Twin Composer”
- Read PepsiCo press release: “PepsiCo Announces Industry-First AI and Digital Twin Collaboration with Siemens and NVIDIA”
Frequently asked questions
- What is a digital twin in supply chain management?
A digital twin is a virtual replica of physical assets, processes, or systems that uses real-time data to simulate, predict, and optimize performance before making changes to actual operations. - How does PepsiCo use digital twin technology?
PepsiCo uses Siemens Digital Twin Composer to create photorealistic 3D models of manufacturing plants, warehouses, and logistics networks, enabling the company to test facility layouts, optimize workflows, and identify bottlenecks virtually. - What results has PepsiCo achieved with digital twins?
PepsiCo achieved a 20% throughput increase at a Gatorade plant within three months and estimates 10-15% reduction in capital expenditures across operations. - What role does NVIDIA play in this collaboration?
Siemens Digital Twin Composer is built on NVIDIA Omniverse libraries, which provide the physics simulation and rendering capabilities for creating accurate, immersive digital environments. - When was this partnership announced?
The industry-first collaboration between PepsiCo, Siemens, and NVIDIA was announced at CES 2026 in Las Vegas.
