Japanese firm Toshiba and Huawei to collaborate on the integration of NB-IoT for the development of smart factory solutions
A cooperation agreement between Toshiba and Huawei will accelerate the commercial availability of NB-IoT solutions in a diverse range of vertical industries.
Under the terms of a recently signed memorandum of understanding, both firms will collaborate to develop wireless product life cycle management solutions based on NB-IoT for real-world manufacturing scenarios. As a first step, Huawei will work closely with Toshiba by providing the communications technology expertise and help facilitate the integration of NB-IoT technology within Toshiba’s current IoT gateway.
The initial testing of this solution will be performed in Huawei’s NB-IoT Open Lab located in Shanghai, China.
A second phase of the collaboration project stipulates the implementation of live field tests. Toshiba and Huawei aims to develop a suite of Smart Factory solutions based on NB-IoT technology.
“NB-IoT delivers clear advantages in coverage, security and efficient power consumption, and will serve to improve efficiencies and make factories around the world smart. The collaboration will allow us to further enhance SPINEX, our IoT architecture, and will contribute to our ongoing revenue growth strategy,” Shigeyoshi Shimotsuji, Corporate Vice President of Toshiba Corporation and Executive Vice President of Toshiba Industrial ICT Solutions Company, said.
“Toshiba is actively seeking new opportunities for growth in a variety of industries. With billions of potential connections soon to be realized by the increasing ubiquity of IoT, working with Huawei and its NB-IoT solution will help us gain a sizable portion of the global LPWA market,” he added.
“NB-IoT has received a great deal of attention particularly from vertical industries since its initial deployments, and has already been applied successfully in roughly 20 different industry categories,” Edward Deng, President of Huawei Wireless Solution, said. “The cooperation between Huawei and Toshiba represents that the first NB-IoT application of its kind in the Smart Factory space.”
