Air Liquide : inaugurates an Advanced Fabrication Center at its Delaware Innovation Campus, in the United States

Air Liquide and its American subsidiary Airgas today inaugurate an Advanced Fabrication Center at the Delaware Innovation Campus in the United States. The objective of this center of industrial expertise is to accelerate the process of innovation in order to improve and develop more efficient fabrication technologies and, in so doing, help our customers durably meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Located on the Delaware Innovation Campus, the Advanced Fabrication Center (AFC) is devoted to the joint development of technological solutions in the area of fabrication processes. This center brings together experts from Air Liquide specialized in plasma and electric arc welding and cutting, in laser and additive fabrication, and in robotic and cobotic¹ welding, and is equipped with new state of the art equipment and technology provided by partners for the purpose of carrying out tests.

Promoting a global approach and leveraging the expertise of the teams working at the Delaware Innovation Campus, the center offers a space designed for collaboration with equipment manufacturers to better meet the needs of end-users. It will enable new research with academic institutions for the purpose of using innovation to develop and optimize new manufacturing technologies.

Air Liquide has a global network of Innovation Campuses with integrated R&D centers that maintain close ties to the Group's activities, which encourages open collaboration with customers, suppliers, universities, research institutes and start-ups. More specifically, the Delaware Innovation Campus has already developed numerous partnerships with US universities, including Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Princeton, Georgia Tech and the University of Delaware. With the creation of this new Advanced Fabrication Center, Air Liquide combines the Group's capacity for innovation and the considerable expertise that Airgas has in the fabrication market for the benefit of end customers.

¹ Cobotic = direct or remote interaction between a human operator and a robotic system.