From AI-assisted to AI-native Industrial Control: Architecture, Agent Design, and Challenges
The integration of AI and industrial control is rapidly transforming industrial automation. However, current approaches remain predominantly AI-assisted, where AI functions are incorporated as auxiliary components without fundamentally altering the underlying architecture of industrial control systems. Consequently, the potential of AI to enable higher levels of autonomy, adaptability, and continuous evolution remains underutilized. This paper proposes an AI-native industrial control paradigm, which reconceptualizes industrial control systems by positioning AI as the intrinsic core rather than an external enhancement. The proposed paradigm is built upon an AI-native infrastructure and a collection of collaborative agentic AIs, each encapsulating a set of advanced skills. Among them, the industrial control agent plays a central role in orchestrating the system lifecycle. Through this paradigm, industrial control shifts from a closed, capability-oriented, human-driven, and passive engineering process to an open, task-oriented, intent-driven, and autonomous solution delivery mechanism. The paper further analyzes the key challenges of the AI-native paradigm from both AI and industrial control perspectives, including issues related to AI model reliability, formal verification, real-time assurance, and heterogeneous resource orchestration. Overall, this work outlines a forward-looking vision for industrial control in the AI era and identifies critical research directions toward autonomous, evolvable, and adaptive control systems in complex and dynamic industrial environments.