Through the partnership, both companies will provide IoT solutions for Chinese firms and foreign companies operating in China
Arm and China Unicom announced a long-term partnership to deliver internet of things solutions to Chinese enterprises and global companies which are seeking a local presence in China.
The collaboration involves providing a solution that incorporates Arm Pelion Device Management, Arm Mbed OS and China Unicom’s new IoT platform, as well as a device and application ecosystem. That platform, which is used to connect 100 million devices across China, brings with it an “edge-to-cloud” ecosystem, the two companies said, as well as device-to-data security and device management because it is built on top of Arm’s device management service and is “tightly integrated” Mbed OS.
Arm and China Unicom said that their work together will mean that Chinese enterprises and foreign companies which operate in China will be able to deploy and manage IoT applications at scale across verticals, including smart utilities, smart cities and smart logistics. Arm’s Pelion offering for device management helps enterprises with device updates and management through the device lifecycle and can be deployed in public or private clouds, on-premise or in hybrid environments. Meanwhile, Arm’s Mbed OS integrates components and mainstream standards for more efficient IoT development and enables differentiation by developers, according to the company.
“China Unicom IoT has made efforts to be the driver of the IoT era. Facing the ever-increasing number of devices, we believe that our collaborations with Arm will help our clients to efficiently grow their businesses, provide better service experiences and earn higher investment return. Furthermore, we will build the whole IoT ecosystem together, facilitating IoT upgrades and service transformation,” said Chen Xiaotian, GM of China Unicom IoT.
“IoT presents a significant opportunity for enterprises, but requires solutions that are easy to implement, secure and can manage devices over their entire lifecycle,“ said Dipesh Patel, president of the IoT services group at Arm. “With China Unicom licensing Pelion Device Management and using Mbed OS, we are together bringing tremendous scale and simplicity in enabling the secure development and management of IoT devices so that enterprises can obtain value from their deployments.”
Sam Lucero, senior principal analyst for IoT at IHS Markit, noted that the IoT market in China is rapidly growing and that cellular IoT connects are expected to jump from 560 million in 2018 to 1.5 billion by 2022.
“This growth presents a tremendous opportunity for partnerships, like this one between Arm and China Unicom, to bring new solutions to market that attempt to address the need for simple and secure enterprise deployment and management of IoT devices,” Lucero said.
