Advantech outlined and demonstrated at its Industrial IoT World Partner Conference - held at the company's headquarters is Taipei, Taiwan, from December 5th to 7th - how the digital transformation will deeply change business models. In this process, AI and computer vision are meaningful to accelerate problem solving for specific scenarios.
Creating ecosystems by combining different technologies on powerful cloud platforms is at the core of the strategy presented. ''About a year ago, Advantech held its IoT Co-Creation Summit in Suzhou, Shanghai, which attracted more 6000 participants eager to co-create the future of the IoT world. Now, we have more than 450 people joining our event here in Taipei from more than 40 countries,'' said Linda Tsai, President of Industrial IoT at Advantech.
The aim of the conference was also to show the evolution of the co-creation strategy and the main innovations released in collaboration with partners. ''We have 16 partners demonstrating their solutions co-created with Advantech,'' Linda Tsai added.
Partnering for Success
Advantech explained that its co-creation strategy is bearing fruit. Partnership is the key to success in the medium and long term, as it brings mutual commitment and a culture of mindsharing. This in turn generates engagement and co-involvement in business developments, while creating new values and growing trust, all elements of a strong business success. ''We go alone, we go very fast. But only if we go together we will go far,'' stated LindaTsai at the end of her intervention.
KC Liu, CEO at Advantech showed how the company will accomplish the mission of co-creating the future of industrial world in the IoT world in 2020 and beyond. According to the AIoT overall industry value chain and market share, the traditional business of edge computing and edge devices takes 25% of overall IoT market; communication devices - including wires, wireless, switches, routers etc. - take another 10%, as much as software platforms, such as Advantech's the WISE-Paas solution.
''The rest and the biggest part (55%) will belong to domain solutions and industrial apps, therefore to our customers, which are domain solutions integrators. At Advantech, our traditional businesses for more than 30 years has been edge computing and industrial communication, or what we call the 'Phase I business' '' explained KC Liu. Phase I and Phase II (the WISE-Paas) together were Advantech's core business.
To penetrate Phase III, the domain solutions part, Advantech is leveraging partner co-creation and joint ventures. ''If we want to get to Phase III, we need to overcome the obstacle of the so called 'Industral App decoupling', to be able to get to the stage 2.0 of the WisePaas. This will happen in 2020. The next breakthrough, will be closed platform sharing 3.0. After that, we can enable a real big growth of domain innovation stage 4.0. In four or five year, we will enjoy the big boom of IoT,'' KC Liu forecasts.
New portfolio of solutions to face the wave of growth
Software decoupling is a really important concept that will enable an enourmous growth through the integration of all the apps in a single software solution. Since advanced digital transformation is a must, Advantech unveiled that they will announce a new I.Apps portfolio on WISE-Paas Marketplace 2.0 to keep up with the expectation of growth coming from decoupling. Among the main drivers of innovations, besides IoT, we find AI and 5G.
5G and AI are enabler of IIoT
For Linda Tsai ''the integration of 5G and AI are essential to make IIoT happen. Applications are already there, we just need to be prepared for the new technology coming. That's why Advantech presented its high-security 5G-ready network management solutions, the ICT-4000, that guarantees low latency, high bandwidth, high capacity and low power.
The newly introduced xNavi software series also goes in this direction. This edge computing software enables machine vision inspection, production traceability, equipment monitoring, and predictive maintenance, and supports most of Advantech's products. By bringing AI to the edge, high computer power and industrial efficiency are guaranteed.
Europe as a one of the key markets
Advantech wishes to strengthen its position in Europe, considered a strategic market in terms of innovation and potential growth. ''With its variety cultures, countries and languages, Europe is the cradle of innovation. Working in Europe with prominent pioneers of industrial automation like Siemens, Schneider Electric and Bosch gives us the possibility not only to consolidate our global presence but also to enhance our know-how and better understand customers’ requirements and expectations,’’ claimed Chaney Ho, Co-founder, Executive Director of Board at Advantech.
At this stage of Advantech’s expansion, it’s deemed essential to improve the company’s global footprint. The US is currently the biggest market for Advantech, followed by China and Europe, where the growth is expected to be around 4 percentage points in the next five years, as a result of the investments made in engineering projects and localization. According to Mr. Ho: ''In our company culture, we believe that diversity creates innovation. And Europe is the best melting-pot to open new perspectives and deliver progress.’’
Sara Ibrahim
