内容来源：https://news.microsoft.com/source/emea/features/a-concrete-vision-saint-gobain-and-microsoft-discovery-build-for-the-future/

内容总结：

圣戈班携手微软探索AI驱动建筑材料研发新路径

巴黎——法国建筑材料巨头圣戈班正与微软展开深度合作，借助人工智能技术加速低碳水泥添加剂的研发进程。这家始建于1665年、曾为凡尔赛宫制造镜面的老牌企业，如今正将前沿AI技术引入其核心业务领域。

水泥生产是全球碳排放的重要来源之一，约占年度二氧化碳排放量的7%。圣戈班一直致力于寻找能够降低水泥碳排放并提升强度的化学元素。今年早些时候，该公司研究人员与微软工程师合作，使用微软Discovery——一个面向科学家和工程师的AI智能体平台——进行研发探索，结果令团队大为震撼。

圣戈班数字加速项目经理莫吉德·拉斯古-勒迈特表示：“我们收集了62000项专利和44000篇摘要。如果不使用这项技术，我们的研究人员需要一年时间才能建立这样的知识库。借助AI，只用了几个小时。”她介绍说，微软Discovery帮助团队缩小了数据范围，分析了化学领域的一些新颖可能性，并在约六周内提出了几种值得测试的新型水泥添加剂成分假设。

圣戈班是微软Discovery今年3月私密发布阶段的首批客户之一，两家公司的团队共同对该平台进行了调优。微软方面参与该项目的是其新设立的业务部门“微软前沿公司”，该部门将微软工程师派驻到圣戈班等企业，利用AI应用和工具提供解决方案。

圣戈班首席数字与信息官乌尔苏拉·索里奇-雷尼尔表示：“建筑行业从生产到运营，占全球碳足迹的40%。我们不会停止建设，但我们可以做出改变，没有人比我们更适合做这件事。”她强调，圣戈班正在积极拥抱技术，以减少浪费、降低能耗、提升效率，水泥生产的脱碳努力只是其中一个例证。“不能为技术而技术，必须始终理解‘为什么’和‘为了什么’。”

在技术落地方面，圣戈班已改变石膏板的交付方式。过去采用标准尺寸，工人现场切割，废料直接填埋。如今公司采用按需切割系统，通过建筑信息模型优化切割方案，实现零填埋。索里奇-雷尼尔表示，新系统将安装时间缩短了30%，“在建筑行业，时间就是金钱，而且环境也受益，因为最终减少了原材料和能源消耗。”

微软一直是圣戈班的关键合作伙伴，两家公司于今年7月签署的框架协议将加速可持续建筑材料和工艺的探索。9月初，圣戈班还任命安尼卡·哈根担任公司首位首席人工智能官，她将与索里奇-雷尼尔共同确定AI如何支撑圣戈班集团的战略规划。哈根表示：“重要的是不要把AI当作目的本身，它是帮助我们实现目标的赋能手段。我的主要任务是赋能增长——如何用AI来实现这一点？现在是塑造未来的时候。”

圣戈班欧洲创新中心总经理西尔维娅·马里亚尼拥有物理学博士学位，曾在该中心从事玻璃涂层研究。她感慨道：“我清楚地记得研究中挣扎于分析海量数据的时刻，那简直是噩梦。如今每天使用AI，我都在想，如果当年就有这些工具，我的生活会轻松得多，我能做的事情也会多得多。”她表示，当前的首要任务是把最好的工具交到研究人员手中，并确保他们知道如何使用。该创新中心将于2027年1月为所有员工配备微软Copilot。她对研究的未来充满信心：“这是一个关键时刻。我希望我们正在开启一个伟大发现的新时代，我们必须尽力从中汲取最好的东西。”

目前，圣戈班已拥有一种名为EnviroAdd的水泥添加剂，可将水泥中熟料的需求量降低约20%。熟料是水泥中的粘结成分，通过高温加热石灰石制成，是二氧化碳排放最显著的环节。通过Discovery跨领域搜索，科学家们找到了一些此前不会考虑的分子，目标是创造一种新的化学添加剂，在进一步减少熟料需求的同时增强水泥强度。拉斯古-勒迈特表示，研究人员正在测试这些分子的性能和化学行为，如果潜力得到验证，下一步将交由开发团队在物理条件下进行测试。

中文翻译：

一个具体的愿景：圣戈班与微软Discovery平台共筑未来

巴黎——圣戈班的业务是建筑材料。公司创立于1665年，当时国王路易十四命其为凡尔赛宫新建的奢华宫殿制造镜面。而且他需要大量镜子。

此举旨在打破当时威尼斯在玻璃制造上的垄断地位，降低成本、提高效率。

如今，圣戈班在81个国家拥有16.1万名员工，生产建筑材料——玻璃仍然重要，但此外还有用于石膏板的石膏、保温材料、混凝土外加剂和水泥添加剂。

最后这几类产品——水泥和混凝土用产品——是公司最重要的产品组之一，也与1665年的玻璃一样，是最具挑战性的产品之一。水泥生产消耗大量能源，约占全球年二氧化碳排放量的7%。圣戈班正在寻找能够减少这些碳排放并提高水泥强度的化学元素。

“我们的研究人员原本需要一年时间才能建立知识库。借助AI，我们只用了几个小时。”

圣戈班数字加速项目经理莫吉德·拉斯特古-勒迈特表示，使用微软Discovery平台为致力于改进水泥添加剂的研究人员节省了数月时间。摄影：克里斯·韦尔施，供微软使用。

因此，当公司研究人员今年早些时候与微软工程师合作，使用微软Discovery——一个面向科学家和工程师的新型AI驱动智能体平台——寻找解决方案时，结果令他们震惊。

“我们实际上收集了62000项专利和44000篇摘要，”负责监督这一寻找低碳、低成本方案项目的数字加速项目经理莫吉德·拉斯特古-勒迈特说。“如果不使用这项技术，我们的研究人员需要一年时间才能建立知识库。借助AI，我们只用了几个小时。”

她笑容满面地说，微软Discovery帮助团队缩小了数据范围，分析了化学方面一些新颖的可能性，并在大约六周内提出了几个关于水泥添加剂新成分的假设，值得进行测试。

研究方式的突破

“所以，是的，研究人员对Discovery非常满意，”拉斯特古-勒迈特说。“这是一个帮助他们获得新想法、加快进度的绝佳工具。”

圣戈班是微软今年3月私下发布Discovery时的首批客户之一，两家公司的团队共同对该平台进行了微调。

微软团队来自一个名为“微软前沿公司”的新运营业务部门，该部门将微软工程师派驻到圣戈班等公司内部，利用AI应用和微软Discovery等工具提供解决方案。

Discovery让科学家能够编排AI智能体来检索文献、关联信息、生成假设、设计实验并运行分析。

“建筑行业，从生产到运营，占全球碳足迹的40%，”圣戈班首席数字与信息官乌尔苏拉·索里奇-雷尼尔说。“我们不会停止建设，但我们可以做出改变，还有谁比我们更适合做这件事呢？”

她说，圣戈班正在拥抱技术，将其作为减少浪费、降低能耗和提高效率的手段。她说，水泥生产脱碳的努力只是其中一个例证。

“你不能为了技术而推技术。你需要始终理解‘为什么’和‘为了什么’。”

乌尔苏拉·索里奇-雷尼尔，圣戈班首席数字与信息官，摄于巴黎总部。摄影：克里斯·韦尔施，供微软使用。

创造现实影响的技术

例如，圣戈班改变了向建筑工地运送石膏板的方式。以前，石膏板是标准尺寸，工人切割石膏板以适应所建房间。但边角料直接被送去垃圾场。

“我们现在有了按需切割系统，”索里奇-雷尼尔说。“我们获取建筑信息模型，优化切割方案，这样就不会有任何东西被送到垃圾填埋场。”

她说，新系统将安装时间缩短了30%。“在建筑行业，时间就是金钱，”她说。“环境也受益，因为最终使用的原材料和能源都更少。这要归功于我们使用的数字工具。”

索里奇-雷尼尔说，微软一直是关键合作伙伴，两家公司于7月签署的框架协议将使双方受益，加速寻找可持续建筑材料和工艺。

“你不能为了技术而推技术，”她说。“你需要始终理解‘为什么’和‘为了什么’。有了这种理解，你才能发展、进化，并用新工具推动事情向前发展，比如这个研究平台。”

圣戈班拥抱前沿技术的努力在9月初又迈出了一步，公司任命安妮卡·哈根担任新设立的职位——公司首位首席人工智能官。

她将与索里奇-雷尼尔合作，确定AI如何支持圣戈班集团的战略计划。

“重要的是不要把AI当作目的来谈论，”哈根说。“它是帮助我们到达目标的手段。我的主要任务是赋能增长——我们如何利用AI来实现这一点？现在是塑造未来的时候。”

安妮卡·哈根是圣戈班新任（也是首位）首席人工智能官。摄影：克里斯·韦尔施，供微软使用。

应用科学家的激动时刻

拉斯特古-勒迈特说，圣戈班位于巴黎郊区奥贝维利耶的欧洲创新中心团队已经在考虑其他可以应用Discovery的项目，但水泥添加剂的研发将继续进行。

圣戈班已经有一种名为EnviroAdd的水泥添加剂，可将水泥中对熟料的需求减少约20%。

熟料是水泥中的粘结成分，通过高温加热石灰石制成，这是二氧化碳排放最显著的环节。

拉斯特古-勒迈特说，通过跨领域搜索建筑行业以外的信息，使用Discovery的科学家们找到了一些他们原本不会考虑的分子。其思路是创造一种新的化学添加剂，能够进一步减少水泥中对熟料的需求，同时使水泥更强固。

“他们目前正在测试这些分子，验证是否符合他们所寻找的性能和化学特性，”她说。如果这些潜力经得起审查，下一步将是把潜在解决方案交给开发团队，由其在物理条件下测试该添加剂。

圣戈班发现的新时代

“今天我每使用一天AI，我就会想，如果我当年就有这个，我的生活会轻松得多，我能做的也会多得多。”

西尔维娅·马里亚尼是圣戈班法国奥贝维利耶欧洲创新中心的总经理。摄影：克里斯·韦尔施，供微软使用。

西尔维娅·马里亚尼是圣戈班欧洲创新中心的总经理，该中心有来自30个国家的400多名研究人员，致力于寻找更可持续、更有利可图的建筑方式。圣戈班在美国、印度、中国和巴西还设有另外四个创新中心。

马里亚尼拥有物理学博士学位，在担任研究员期间曾在创新中心从事玻璃涂层研究。当被问及AI是否会改变她当年的工作时，她叹了口气。

“我清楚地记得研究生涯中有一段时期，我在数据分析中苦苦挣扎，数据量惊人，”她说。“那简直是一场噩梦。今天我每使用一天AI，我就会想，如果我当年就有这个，我的生活会轻松得多，我能做的也会多得多。”

她说，她现在的首要任务是把最好的工具交到研究人员手中，并确保他们知道如何使用。她补充说，创新中心将在2027年1月为所有员工配备微软Copilot。

她说她对研究的未来非常乐观。

“这是一个关键时刻。我希望我们正在开启一个伟大发现的新时代。我认为我们必须努力从中获得最大的收益。”

英文来源：

A concrete vision: Saint-Gobain and Microsoft Discovery build for the future
PARIS — Saint-Gobain’s business is construction materials. It got its start in 1665, when King Louis XIV charged the company with making the mirrors for his lavish new palace in Versailles. And he needed a lot of mirrors.
The idea was to break the monopoly that glass-making power Venice had at the time, cutting costs and improving efficiency.
These days, Saint-Gobain has 161,000 employees in 81 countries making construction materials — glass is still important, but there’s also gypsum for plaster board, insulation and concrete admixtures and cement additives.
These last elements — products for cement and concrete — represent one of the company’s most important product groups, and like glass in 1665, one of the most challenging. Cement production uses a lot of energy, and accounts for around 7% of annual CO2 emissions globally. Saint-Gobain is looking for chemical elements that could reduce those carbon emissions and improve the strength of cement.
“It would have taken our researchers a year to create the knowledge base. Using AI, it took us a couple of hours.”
Mojdeh Rastgoo-Lemaitre, a digital acceleration program manager at Saint-Gobain, said that using Microsoft Discovery saved months of time for researchers working to improve an additive for cement. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft.
So, when the company’s researchers collaborated with engineers from Microsoft earlier this year in using Microsoft Discovery, a new AI-powered agentic platform for scientists and engineers, to find solutions, the results stunned them.
“We actually gathered 62,000 patents and 44,000 abstracts,” says Mojdeh Rastgoo-Lemaitre, a digital acceleration program manager overseeing the project to find lower-carbon, less expensive options. “Without using this technology, it would have taken our researchers a year to create the knowledge base. Using AI, it took us a couple of hours.”
With a broad smile, she says Microsoft Discovery helped the team to narrow the data, analyze some novel possibilities in the chemistry involved and come up with several hypotheses about new ingredients for cement additives worth testing in about six weeks.
A breakthrough in how research is done
“So, yes, the researchers are very happy with Discovery,” Rastgoo-Lemaitre says. “It’s a great tool to help them have new ideas, and to go faster.”
Saint-Gobain was one of Microsoft’s first clients to use Discovery in private release in March of this year, and teams from both companies worked on fine-tuning the platform.
The team from Microsoft was from a new operating business called the Microsoft Frontier Company, which places Microsoft engineers inside companies like Saint-Gobain to deliver solutions using AI applications and tools like Microsoft Discovery.
Discovery lets scientists orchestrate AI agents to search literature, connect information, generate hypotheses, design experiments and run analyses.
“The construction industry, from production to running, is 40% of the world’s carbon footprint,” Ursula Soritsch-Renier, chief digital and information officer at Saint-Gobain says. “We’re not going to stop constructing, but we can make change, and who is better placed to do that than us?”
She says Saint-Gobain is embracing technology as a means to cut waste, reduce energy use and be more efficient. The efforts to decarbonize the making of cement is just one illustration, she says.
“You don’t just push technology for the sake of technology. You need to always understand the ‘why’ and the ‘what for’.”
Ursula Soritsch-Reiner, chief digital and information officer, at Saint-Gobain’s headquarters in Paris. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft.
Technology that creates real-world impact
For example, Saint-Gobain has changed the way it delivers plaster board to construction sites. Before, it came in a standard size, and workers cut the board to fit the rooms being built. But the leftovers just went to the dump.
“We have now a cut-to-order system,” Soritsch-Renier says. “So, we get the building information model, we optimize the cuts, then nothing goes to the landfill.”
She says the new system improved time-to-installation by 30%. “In construction, time is money,” she says. “And the environment wins because in the end it is less raw material and less energy. And that’s thanks to the digital tools we’re using.”
Microsoft has been a key partner, Soritsch-Renier says, and the framework agreement the two companies signed in July will benefit both companies by accelerating the search for sustainable construction materials and processes.
“You don’t just push technology for the sake of technology,” she says. “You need to always understand the ‘why’ and the ‘what for.’ And with that understanding you develop and you evolve and you push things forward with new tools, like with the research platform.”
Saint-Gobain’s efforts to embrace cutting-edge technology took another step at the beginning of September, when it appointed Annica Hagen to a newly created role as the company’s first chief artificial intelligence officer.
She will work with Soritsch-Renier to define how AI can support the Saint-Gobain Group’s strategic plan.
“It’s important not to talk about AI as a means to an end,” Hagen says. “It’s an enablement to get where we want to go. My main task is to enable growth — and how can we use AI to enable that? Now is the time to shape the future.”
Annica Hagen is the new (and first) chief artificial intelligence officer at Saint-Gobain. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft.
An exciting time to be an applied scientist
Rastgoo-Lemaitre says the teams at Saint-Gobain’s Innovation Hub Europe in the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers were already thinking about other projects where they could apply Discovery, but that research and development on the cement additives would continue.
Saint-Gobain already has a cement-additive called EnviroAdd that reduces the need for clinker in cement by about 20%.
Clinker is the ingredient in cement that binds, and it’s made by super-heating limestone, which is where the production of CO2 is most significant.
By searching across domains outside of the construction industry, Rastgoo-Lemaitre says, the scientists using Discovery were able to find some molecules they otherwise would not have considered. The idea is to create a new chemical additive that could further reduce the need for clinker in cement while making it stronger.
“They are right now testing those molecules for the behaviors and chemistry they are looking for,” she says. If the potential bears up under scrutiny, the next steps would be passing the potential solution to the development team, which would test the additive in physical conditions.
A new era of discovery at Saint-Gobain
“Every day that I’m using AI today, I think, if I had only had this my life would have been so much easier, and I could have done so much more.”
Silvia Mariani is the managing director of the Saint-Gobain Innovation Hub Europe in Aubervilliers, France. Photo by Chris Welsch for Microsoft.
Silvia Mariani is the managing director of the Saint-Gobain Innovation Hub Europe, where more than 400 researchers from 30 countries work to find more sustainable and profitable ways to build. Saint-Gobain has four other innovation hubs, in the United States, India, China and Brazil.
Mariani has a Ph.D. in physics and worked on glass coatings at the innovation hub when she was a researcher. She sighs when asked if AI might have changed her work in those days.
“I have very precise moment in mind my research life where I was struggling in analyzing data, an incredible amount of data,” she says. “It was just a nightmare. And every day that I’m using AI today, I think, if I had only had this my life would have been so much easier, and I could have done so much more.”
She says her priority now is getting the best tools in the hands of her researchers and making sure they know how to use them. She added that the innovation hub would be getting Microsoft Copilot for all its employees in January 2027.
She says she is very optimistic about the future of research.
“This is a key moment. I hope we’re starting a new era of wonderful discoveries. I think we have to try to take the best of it.”