Digital transformation deepens in China

A cooperative platform for the edge computing industry has been established in Beijing, China.

The Edge Computing Consortium (ECC) aims to deliver openness and collaboration in the operational technology (OT) and information and communications technology (ICT) industries, nurture industrial best practice, and stimulate the healthy and sustainable development of edge computing.

“Industrial automation technology systems will evolve from layered architecture and information silos to IoT, cloud computing and big data analytics architecture,” said Yu Haibin, chairman of the ECC and director of Shenyang Institute of Automation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“Amidst the evolution, edge computing will bolster distributed industrial automatic self-control architecture. Therefore, the ECC will keep an eye on the design of the architecture and the choice of technical roadmap, as well as promoting industrial development through standardisation. In addition, building an ecosystem will also be focused.”

In-depth coordination and convergence of OT and ICT help improve industrial automation, meet the customised requirements of products and services, promote full-lifecycle transformation from products to service operations, and trigger the innovation of products, services and business models.

“China launched two national strategies, integration of digitisation and industrialisation, as well as ‘Made in China 2025’,” said Haibin.

“This requires much on ICT and OT convergence. Edge computing is key to supporting and enabling this convergence. Meanwhile, industrial development is also facing a turning point.”

The ECC is in pursuit of the OICT concept that OT, information technology (IT) and communications technology (CT) resources should integrate and coordinate with each other, and stick to the spirit of consensus, unity and win-win cooperation, to drive forward the ECC’s healthy development.

The ECC strives to advance cooperation among industry resources from government, vendors, academics, research and customer sectors.

The Edge Computing Consortium’s White Paper was also released at the 2016 Edge Computing Industrial Summit, during the ECC’s launch ceremony. It puts emphasis on the edge computing industry’s trends and major challenges, elaborates on the definition and content of edge computing, displays the ECC’s top-level design and operational model, and formulates the reference architecture and technological framework of edge computing, guiding the ECC’s future development.

The ECC was jointly created by Huawei Technologies, Shenyang Institute of Automation of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), Intel Corporation, ARM and iSoftStone.

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