Salas O'Brien and Siemens have been expanding their partnership. What do the two recent recognitions spell for customers?

Salas O'Brien established an expanded relationship with Siemens spanning two of its core businesses. The firm is now recognized as both a Siemens Digital Industries Solutions partner and a contributor to the newly formed Siemens Smart Infrastructure Alliance Program. No other firm in North America holds both designations, indicating a broader span of solutions for customers.

What does the Smart Infrastructure Alliance designation cover?

The alliance centers on intelligent, energy-efficient, and resilient buildings and campuses. A key element is Salas O'Brien's access to Siemens' Building X platform, an open, cloud-based suite that connects building systems (including HVAC, energy, security, and vertical transportation) on a unified data foundation. The firm intends to apply these capabilities for clients pursuing building modernization, cost reduction, and sustainability goals, with stated focus on healthcare, higher education, life sciences, and commercial real estate.

What does the Digital Industries Solutions partner designation cover?

The designation recognizes Salas O'Brien's ability to deliver industrial digital transformation at scale, spanning strategy and design through implementation and ongoing operations. Clients in manufacturing, life sciences, and food and beverage sectors gain access to Siemens' industrial automation and digital solutions combined with Salas O'Brien's engineering delivery capability. Marla Davids, director of partner sales at Siemens Digital Industries, cited connected automation, digital twins, and industrial AI as the core technologies the partnership brings to manufacturers.

What does the AV and systems integration community need to understand about Building X?

Building X is Siemens' open, cloud-based platform designed to sit above individual building systems and unify their data. For AV integrators working in corporate, healthcare, and campus environments, that layer is directly adjacent to room control, occupancy sensing, and AV network management. Projects that previously treated HVAC controls and AV automation as separate scopes are increasingly converging on unified platforms like Building X, which means integrators who understand only the AV signal chain may find themselves downstream of engineering firms like Salas O'Brien on project decision hierarchies.

What are the benefits of this expanding collaboration between Siemens and Salas O'Brien?

John Glenski, principal and senior director of automation and digital at Salas O'Brien, said the expanded relationship strengthens the firm's ability to help clients connect operations, facilities, and data into more intelligent and efficient environments. Mike Kearney, head of sales for Smart Infrastructure Buildings at Siemens USA, said the alliance enables earlier, more integrated collaboration in the design phase and that the complementary strengths reduce cost and risk while delivering digitally enabled facilities.

How large are Salas O'Brien's and Siemens' footprints?

Salas O'Brien is an employee-owned engineering and technical services firm ranked among the top firms by Engineering News-Record and Consulting-Specifying Engineer. The company has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of North America's fastest-growing private companies for over a decade. Siemens Group USA generated $24.427 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025, ending September 30, 2025, and has more than 50,000 employees across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

Corporate · July 13, 2026

Salas O'Brien Becomes First North American Firm to Hold Both Siemens Smart Infrastructure Alliance and Digital Industries Partner Designations

The dual recognition positions the integrator to serve clients across both the plant floor and the connected facility.

By AVinBrief Editorial Desk · July 13, 2026

Salas O'Brien and Siemens have been expanding their partnership. What do the two recent recognitions spell for customers?: Salas O'Brien established an expanded relationship with Siemens spanning two of its core businesses. The firm is now recognized as both a Siemens Digital Industries Solutions partner and a contributor to the newly formed Siemens Smart Infrastructure Alliance Program. No other firm in North America holds both designations, indicating a broader span of solutions for customers.
What does the Smart Infrastructure Alliance designation cover?: The alliance centers on intelligent, energy-efficient, and resilient buildings and campuses. A key element is Salas O'Brien's access to Siemens' Building X platform, an open, cloud-based suite that connects building systems (including HVAC, energy, security, and vertical transportation) on a unified data foundation. The firm intends to apply these capabilities for clients pursuing building modernization, cost reduction, and sustainability goals, with stated focus on healthcare, higher education, life sciences, and commercial real estate.
What does the Digital Industries Solutions partner designation cover?: The designation recognizes Salas O'Brien's ability to deliver industrial digital transformation at scale, spanning strategy and design through implementation and ongoing operations. Clients in manufacturing, life sciences, and food and beverage sectors gain access to Siemens' industrial automation and digital solutions combined with Salas O'Brien's engineering delivery capability. Marla Davids, director of partner sales at Siemens Digital Industries, cited connected automation, digital twins, and industrial AI as the core technologies the partnership brings to manufacturers.
What does the AV and systems integration community need to understand about Building X?: Building X is Siemens' open, cloud-based platform designed to sit above individual building systems and unify their data. For AV integrators working in corporate, healthcare, and campus environments, that layer is directly adjacent to room control, occupancy sensing, and AV network management. Projects that previously treated HVAC controls and AV automation as separate scopes are increasingly converging on unified platforms like Building X, which means integrators who understand only the AV signal chain may find themselves downstream of engineering firms like Salas O'Brien on project decision hierarchies.
What are the benefits of this expanding collaboration between Siemens and Salas O'Brien?: John Glenski, principal and senior director of automation and digital at Salas O'Brien, said the expanded relationship strengthens the firm's ability to help clients connect operations, facilities, and data into more intelligent and efficient environments. Mike Kearney, head of sales for Smart Infrastructure Buildings at Siemens USA, said the alliance enables earlier, more integrated collaboration in the design phase and that the complementary strengths reduce cost and risk while delivering digitally enabled facilities.
How large are Salas O'Brien's and Siemens' footprints?: Salas O'Brien is an employee-owned engineering and technical services firm ranked among the top firms by Engineering News-Record and Consulting-Specifying Engineer. The company has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of North America's fastest-growing private companies for over a decade. Siemens Group USA generated $24.427 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025, ending September 30, 2025, and has more than 50,000 employees across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

The Take

What does Salas O'Brien's dual Siemens designation signal to AV integrators competing for complex building projects?

The story here is about where the boundary between AV integration and building engineering is moving.

For years, AV integrators have worked alongside mechanical, electrical, and other engineers on large building projects: parallel workstreams that converged at commissioning. The Salas O’Brien model is different. As an engineering firm that also delivers AV, automation, and controls, it competes for the whole-building technology scope from the design phase forward. The Siemens Smart Infrastructure Alliance designation, with its emphasis on early design-phase collaboration, reinforces exactly that positioning.

For AV integrators working in healthcare, higher education, and corporate campus environments, a few of Salas O’Brien’s stated focus markets, the practical question is whether a project’s AV scope gets specified inside a platform like Building X before the AV integrator is in the room. Integrators who can speak the language of unified building data, occupancy analytics, and cloud-managed infrastructure will have a cleaner path into those conversations. Those who frame their scope as display installation and room control may find the scope has already been drawn around them.

The specific question worth asking on any large campus or healthcare project: who is specifying the building automation layer, and does the AV design have a defined interface to it?

Sources

Salas O'Brien Expands Siemens Relationship to Advance Built Environment and Industrial Innovation, Salas O'Brien (press release)