Huawei made a big splash at Mobile World Congress this month, and the company is wasting no time in building on that momentum, with two big announcements today. It unveiled its first Openlab in Munich at CeBIT 2016, which will be a center of excellence to foster ICT innovation with partners in the IoT, cloud computing and big data industries with a goal of building safer and smarter cities. So far, more than 25 partners including T-Systems, SAP, Intel, Alstom, and Hexagon have expressed an interest in participating in the new Openlab. Meanwhile, on March 14, Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with KUKA, a robotics technology developer, to develop smart manufacturing solutions for industrial markets in Europe and China.
“To compete successfully in the new digital world, many enterprises need to rethink their traditional business models," said David He, President of Marketing and Solution Sales, Enterprise Business Group, Huawei. “Munich Openlab empowers enterprises to advance their digital transformation through customer-centric, agile innovation and open collaboration with key Huawei partners in Europe. This open, collaborative platform enables enterprises to capitalize on the aggregate value of industry-leading technology and expertise while facilitating development of the industry ecosystem to create greater value for customers.”
Huawei has established 10 inter-connected Openlabs across the globe to help enterprises across various industries accelerate digital transformation.
Under the new MOU, Huawei and KUKA will collaborate in cloud computing, big data, mobile technology, and industrial robots to help manufacturing customers transform and embrace smart manufacturing. Research and development on the use of small cell IoT, wireless and 5G network, and big data solutions in manufacturing and factory environments and the deployment of Huawei's infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions to develop cloud-hosted smart manufacturing services will be critical to the partnership. In addition, KUKA and Huawei will set up a joint intuitive robot programming team to explore the use of imitative deep learning in advanced manufacturing environments.
“The manufacturing industry is undergoing profound transformation, and robots will be critical to revolutionizing factories and driving new opportunities. KUKA plays a central role in promoting and developing smart manufacturing solutions in Germany and across the world,” said Ryan Ding, Executive Director and President of Products & Solutions, Huawei. “We're confident our strategic partnership with KUKA will enable Huawei to lead the way in helping global manufacturing enterprises transform their factories and gain significant competitive advantages from realizing smart manufacturing.”
The common thread in both announcements is a spirit of collaboration and partnership that is becoming the modus operandi for the IoT industry of 2016. And that’s a very good thing.
Christian Lamprechter, Germany Country Manager, Intel, said of the Openlab, “We believe there are great opportunities for Huawei and Intel to collaborate as Intel also has an IoT Openlab in Munich, which enables the two parties to share talents, technical platforms and other resources. We look forward to strengthening the exchange and collaboration with Huawei in areas such as developing and marketing end-to-end IoT solutions, with the goal to deliver greater value to customers.”
And I think we all look forward to seeing what you all come up with.
Edited by
Maurice Nagle
