BEIJING, Nov. 29, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Edge Computing Industry Summit 2017, hosted by the Edge Computing Consortium (ECC), was held in Beijing today. The summit is the world's most influential edge computing industry event. This year, the summit was themed on "Edge Computing: All Connected, All Intelligent" and attracted more than 600 top industry experts, enterprise leaders, industry analysts, and customers from Europe, the United States, and China. By facilitating the comprehensive discussion and demonstration of cutting-edge, innovative technologies and applications of edge computing, this summit promoted the construction of the edge computing industry ecosystem and rapid development of the edge computing industry.
Discussing Industry Development and Seizing New Opportunities for Edge Computing
As the Internet and IoT develop rapidly, the era of connectivity of everything has opened the curtain. By centering on intelligent connectivity of everything, edge computing meets the critical needs of industry digitalization in connectivity, timeliness, intelligence, data optimization, security, and privacy protection. At present, edge computing has become an indispensable element in the digital transformation of industries, and industrial development has entered a period of important opportunities.
Edge Computing Industry Summit 2017 includes a main forum and two industry forums: "Edge Intelligence: Momentous Industrial Development" and "Edge Intelligence: Making New Businesses Agile". International experts from the International Data Corporation (IDC), Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), and Fraunhofer FOKUS, as well as ECC members including Huawei, Shenyang Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Intel made 12 keynote speeches and 16 technical sharing speeches at this summit. From the perspectives of business, technology, and ecosystem, the speakers discussed how to grasp the trends and development opportunities of the edge computing industry, promote industrial digital transformation, and achieve rapid growth in the age of connectivity of everything.
Devoting to Business Implementation and Demonstrating Innovative Edge Computing Applications
On November 30, 2016, the ECC was officially founded at the first Edge Computing Industry Summit. After only one year, 154 members have joined the ECC. Members include leading enterprises from smart manufacturing, smart city, energy & power, and information and communications technology (ICT) industries, as well as research institutes and universities in related fields. The ECC is operated through horizontal working groups and vertical industry committees. By co-building joint test beds, the ECC develops innovative edge computing solutions, explores industry values, and promotes application implementation, thereby helping ECC members to achieve business success. To date, the ECC has completed 21 test bed solutions.
At this summit, the exhibition hall spanned more than 600 square meters for demonstrating and experiencing innovative edge computing applications. It showcased 14 test beds and innovative solutions jointly constructed by Huawei, Shenyang Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Intel, iSoftStone, Honeywell, SIASUN, National Instruments (NI), Works Systems, HollySys, ICE Tech, Wapwag, Sansitech, 360 Enterprise Security Group, 15th Research Institute of China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC), and Vrgvtech, covering industries such as smart factory, smart machine tool, intelligent robot for manufacturing, smart security, smart water, smart pole system, smart grid, smart industrial park, cyber security, and public security. Through visualized demonstration and on-site interaction, the exhibition presented visitors with the latest application practices and business values of edge computing for various industries.
Leading EC-IoT Development and Releasing Edge Computing Reference Architecture 2.0 (ECRA 2.0)
Since its establishment, the ECC has regarded system architecture development and technical route selection as important driving forces for the development of the edge computing industry. Using ECRA 2.0 to provide cross-industry designs, the ECC is oriented towards customers' requirements, best industry practices, and business success. In addition, by streamlining resources of the government, enterprises, academies, research institutes and customers, the ECC promotes open cooperation and collaboration of technical architectures, standards, solutions, and applications.
As an important achievement for driving innovations, ECC Edge Computing Reference Architecture 2.0 was officially released at this summit. This document focuses on the concept, characteristics, and benefits of edge computing, and presents the Edge Computing Reference Architecture from the concept view, function design view, and deployment view. Additionally, the document proposes to develop a model-driven, intelligent, distributed open architecture to achieve a simplified architecture, automated and visualized OT & ICT (OICT) facilities, and intelligent collaboration between resource services and industry business requirements. Such hierarchical, open architecture helps promote cross-industry eco-collaboration and quickly incubate products to provide guidance for R&D, application innovation, and industry development of edge computing technologies.
Carrying out Strategic Cooperation and Building an Open Industry Ecosystem
To promote the collaboration of industry resources and lead the development of the edge computing industry, the ECC is committed to building an open ecosystem and actively communicating and cooperating with third-party standards organizations and international industry organizations. Currently, the ECC has established formal cooperation relationships with the IIC, SDN/NFV Industry Alliance, Chinese Association of Automation (CAA), and Avnu Alliance, and offers all-round cooperation in terms of standards formulation, joint innovation, and commercial promotion.
At this summit, the ECC and Alliance of Industrial Internet (AII) formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement, which announced that both parties would cooperate in research reports/white papers, test platforms/test beds, technical standards, and market promotion in the future. The ECC also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with International Solid State Lighting Alliance (ISA) and Telematics Industry Application Alliance (TIAA) to promote application innovation, standards formulation, and commercial implementation of edge computing in smart lighting and intelligent vehicle-mount fields. In addition, the ECC announced that it would jointly hold Symposium on Edge Computing (SEC) China 2018 with Xidian University and Edge Computing Professional Committee of CAA to provide communication and cooperation with the industry, academia, and other related fields. The SEC-China 2018 will become a platform for publishing cutting-edge scientific research achievements in the field, thus vigorously promoting the development of the edge computing technology and industry in China.
