With version 5.5, OPC Router takes the decisive leap into AI-powered Industry 4.0. This release transforms your industrial data into actionable intelligence – through seamless cloud integration, standardized AI connectivity, and intelligent data management. The new features work hand in hand: From data acquisition through standardization to AI analysis in the cloud, a continuous, intelligent data flow is created that transforms your production data into real value.With version 5.5, OPC Router takes the decisive leap into AI-powered Industry 4.0. This release transforms your industrial data into actionable intelligence – through seamless cloud integration, standardized AI connectivity, and intelligent data management. The new features work hand in hand: From data acquisition through standardization to AI analysis in the cloud, a continuous, intelligent data flow is created that transforms your production data into real value.
Snowflake Plug-in – Your Production Data in the AI-Optimized Cloud
The integration of artificial intelligence into industrial processes requires a powerful data infrastructure. With the new Snowflake plug-in, OPC Router connects your production facilities directly to the Snowflake AI Data Cloud – a cloud-based data platform specifically optimized for AI and machine learning applications. Snowflake combines data storage, processing, and analysis in a centralized cloud solution while offering an SQL-like query language that is already familiar to many users.
The new plug-in integrates seamlessly into the OPC Router environment as a full-fledged database plug-in and brings all proven database functions with it. You benefit from extensive configuration options and can transfer your machine data, sensor readings, and process information directly from production to the cloud. OPC Router thus becomes the perfect complement to your cloud data strategy: It collects data where it originates – at machines and systems – and delivers it to Snowflake in a structured manner.
In the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, completely new analysis possibilities open up. You gain access to leading AI models that can classify, summarize, translate, or analyze your data. Particularly valuable: You can develop AI applications even if your team does not have deep programming knowledge. The platform automatically handles governance and security, while you simultaneously benefit from easy data sharing and collaboration between different departments or locations.
The bidirectional data flow makes the integration particularly powerful: You can seamlessly transfer the data processed and analyzed in the Snowflake AI Data Cloud back into OPC Router and continue to use it there. AI-generated insights, forecasts, or optimization suggestions flow directly back into your production processes. You can send these results to your machines, visualize them in dashboards, write them to additional databases, or use them as triggers for automated actions. This closes the loop: From data acquisition through intelligent analysis to automated response – all in one continuous system.
How you benefit:
MCP: Securely Connect AI Systems with Your Data
Connecting AI applications to industrial data sources has been a complex task with many individual interfaces. With support for MCP (Model Context Protocol) in OPC Router 5.5, this changes fundamentally. MCP is an open standard that enables AI applications to interact with external systems in a standardized way – a unified, universal interface for artificial intelligence that enables flexible connections while ensuring security.
For you as an OPC Router user, this means enormous added value: All data sources that OPC Router can connect – from ERP-System to REST APIs or databases – you can now make directly available to AI systems. You maintain full control over which data is passed to the AI and how it may be further processed. You can combine information from any number of plug-ins and provide it as contextualized input for AI models. The AI can then generate text-based reports, graphical visualizations, or other easily understandable content for humans from this raw data.
Configuration is conveniently done via the already familiar REST plug-in.
How you benefit:
JSON Schema Integration: Use Standards Instead of Manual Configuration
Modern industrial communication is increasingly based on JSON-based protocols – whether for REST APIs, MQTT messages, or Unified Namespace architectures. Manual configuration of these data structures has been time-consuming and error prone. With the new JSON Schema Integration, this is a thing of the past. JSON Schemas formally describe how a JSON document should be structured and are used as a standard in many modern platforms.
OPC Router can now import directly from these standards: OpenAPI schemas for REST interfaces and AsyncAPI schemas for MQTT, Unified Namespace, or edge platforms like Siemens Industrial Edge. Concretely, this means: Instead of laboriously reconstructing payload structures manually, you simply import the corresponding schema, and the inputs and outputs in your OPC Router project are generated automatically. This time saving multiplies across many projects and different interfaces.
Furthermore, you can define your own JSON Schemas and establish them as central data models in your company. These schemas are versionable and create a unified language for all systems that exchange JSON data. Whether MQTT, REST, or other interfaces – with centrally managed schemas, you prevent typos, inconsistencies, and misunderstandings between different systems or teams. Your data flows remain traceable, standardized, and quality-assured. This is particularly valuable in larger organizations where different departments or locations work together and depend on consistent data structures.
This standardization is the perfect foundation for AI integration: Clean, consistent data structures enable AI models to precisely understand and process your production data – whether via MCP or directly in the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
How you benefit:
MQTT Storage: Persistent Access to Event-Driven Data
MQTT has established itself as a central communication protocol in modern production environments. But a well-known problem remains: MQTT is an event-driven protocol. If a message is published and your application is not listening at that moment, the information is lost. With the new MQTT Storage function, OPC Router 5.5 extends the MQTT plug-in with an intelligent storage function that solves exactly this problem.
The system internally creates a cache for the last payload of each subscribed topic. This allows you to access MQTT data even if it was not published at the exact moment of the query. You can combine data from multiple topics and work with triggers other than the MQTT trigger. Imagine you want to create a report that combines information from different areas of your production – with MQTT Storage, you simply access the most current values, regardless of when they were last updated.
This function makes all information available in the MQTT network accessible at any time, without having to wait for the next event. This opens up completely new possibilities for time-controlled evaluations, dashboards, or reports that combine data from different time points and sources. Activation is straightforward directly in the MQTT plug-in, and the last known value of each topic is immediately available.
Especially in combination with the AI features of release 5.5, the added value becomes clear: AI models can now access consistent MQTT data via MCP, even if it was not published at the exact moment of a request. This way, AI analyses always receive a complete picture of your production.
How you benefit:
Additional Features in Version 5.5
New Features in the MQTT Plug-in from MQTT Version 5
User Properties
Custom key-value pairs as metadata, similar to HTTP headers. Example: “sensorType”: “temperature” or “priority”: “high”. Very useful for application logic without having to modify the actual payload.
ResponseTopic
The sender directly specifies where the response should be sent. This makes bidirectional communication more flexible without having to agree on topics in advance.
CorrelationData
An identifier for linking request and response. The receiver sends it back, allowing responses to be clearly matched to their respective requests – ideal for request-response patterns, such as when a sensor requests measurement values and needs to match the response to the correct request.
Conclusion: The Continuous Path to Intelligent Production
Version 5.5 makes OPC Router the central platform for AI-powered industrial data communication. The new features mesh perfectly: MQTT Storage secures seamless data access, JSON Schema Integration standardizes your data structures, MCP opens the direct channel to AI applications, and the Snowflake plug-in brings your production data into the AI-optimized cloud.
Together, these functions form a continuous architecture – from sensor to AI analysis. You maintain full control over your data, work with open standards, and benefit from the flexibility you need for future-proof Industry 4.0 projects. OPC Router 5.5 makes your production not just connected, but intelligent.