China’s eastern city of Wuxi has chosen analytics provider SAS as a strategic Internet of Things (IoT) partner. Wuxi is the latest smart city project to sign up the North Carolina company.
The city of Wuxi’s ‘New District’ was established in 1992 with a view to attracting foreign investment and developing emerging technologies. The Chinese government later declared the district a national innovation and demonstration area for wireless sensor networks.
Bringing IoT analytics to Wuxi’s New District
According to Jason Mann, SAS VP of IoT, the company will also launch an IoT Innovation Centre in Wuxi’s New District, while promoting its analytics and IoT solutions to potential pharmaceutical, manufacturing, utilities, and transportation customers in the area.
The move amounts to a clean sweep for SAS, with the chance to show off its solutions at local level and the ability to gain a foothold with industrial customers further afield than the company’s offices in Beijing.
Seagate, Bosch, Sony, and Panasonic all have facilities in the New District, which earlier this year formed an IoT Industry Association to push local modernisation projects.
Zhang Hualin, general manager of China Telecom Wuxi Company, was elected the inaugural president of the Wuxi New District’s IoT Industry Association.
“The association is expected to link all the joiners in the industrial chain to become a whole, and guide the direction of IoT development in the city, helping deepen the industrial superiority in Wuxi and build a smart city here,” he said at the time of its formation.
It is in this context that SAS will deliver a range of IoT analytics tools to keep tabs on Wuxi’s emerging networks, high-velocity IoT devices, and experimental applications.
“Smart cities are built on strategic layers of complementary technologies – smart electrical grids that help manage energy use; connected vehicles that keep drivers safe; connected traffic lights and public transportation systems that keep traffic on schedule; and connected buildings that help owners manage temperature, air quality, and lighting,” said Mann.
“The connected devices, citizens, and environments generate an enormous volume of diverse data that must be analysed at the edge to drive accurate, real-time decision-making. SAS provides advanced IoT analytics with embedded AI and machine learning capabilities to help extract the value that smart cities use to improve quality of life.”
Internet of Business says
SAS is already involved in several smart city and IoT projects. These include using IoT data to support the Boston Public Schools district in improving the efficiency of its bus fleet; uncovering operational insights for GE Transportation; and reducing water waste in the company’s hometown of Cary, North Carolina.
The global IoT analytics market is predicted by IDC to be worth more than $23 billion by 2020. Add to that the expectations – from research firm Frost & Sullivan among others – that smart cities could drive $2 trillion in market value in the next decade, and it’s easy to see why SAS is making moves in the space.
SAS has opened a number of IoT innovation centres in recent times and has plans to open more in the Americas, Europe, and Asia through 2019.
The SAS Sao Paulo office in Brazil will open its IoT Experience Center in the fourth quarter of 2018. A similar venue for innovation is set to open its doors in Mexico City early next year.
SAS also showcases its IoT analytics solutions at its partners’ centres, including the Hewlett-Packard Enterprise IoT Lab located in Houston, and Cisco’s IoT Labs in Lisbon and Sydney.