Cisco Opens Internet of Everything Innovation Center in Tokyo

Tokyo, 2014, November 13, 2014 – Cisco today announced the opening of a new Internet of Everything Innovation Center in Tokyo, where partners and developers can incubate new solutions for local and global markets. The Tokyo IoE innovation center is the seventh Cisco has opened in key innovation hubs around the world.

Part of the center will include an R&D lab for rapid prototyping of solutions for specific industries and customers. In addition to the testing and development lab, Cisco will demonstrate IoE in action by showcasing partner solutions.

Cisco has previously opened IoE Innovation Centers in London, England; Barcelona, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Songdo, South Korea; Berlin, Germany; and Toronto, Canada. Cisco aims to invest $20 million over the next 10 years into the Tokyo IoE innovation center.

Cisco selected Tokyo as the newest location for its IoE Innovation Center because of Japan’s proud history of innovation and for being one of the technology leaders in the world. Cisco believes that Tokyo is an optimal location for promoting new business and services through IoE because of the established foundation for innovation across a broad range of industries that already exists in the city.

IoE, which is the intelligent connection of people, processes, data and things to the Internet, brings unprecedented economic opportunities to private and public sectors. Based on 61 real-world use cases, Cisco consultants calculate that IoE-based solutions can deliver US$19 trillion of economic value worldwide over the next decade. For Japan, that value translates to $870 billion, including $248 billion in manufacturing and $109 in the public sector. Developing a vibrant ecosystem and vertical solutions are essential building blocks to capturing the full value of IoE. The new IoE Innovation Center will help develop and test new vertical solutions that can improve business outcomes and quality of life as well as spark a new generation of startups and jobs in Japan.

Under the “Declaration to be the world’s most advanced IT nation,” Japanese leaders during the past year have been encouraging new innovation to improve businesses, services and quality of life in both industrial and social environments.

Initially, the innovation center will focus on solutions that leverage storage and computer processing capabilities closer to the edge, or physical location, of devices and operations in the public sector and manufacturing industries. Called fog computing, this capability to have intelligence at the edge of operations – in addition to cloud capabilities – is an essential element in realizing the potential of IoE.

The new center is designed to provide an open environment for Cisco, industry partners, start-ups and other innovators to develop applications and next-generation technology ideas. Smart-FOA Co., Ltd., a local startup focused on fog software and the first recipient in Japan of Cisco’s global venture-capital investment fund, will participate in the innovation center efforts.

With the opening of the IoE Innovation Center in Tokyo, Cisco will strengthen relationships with nine existing partners, continuing to deploy innovative solutions with ecosystem partners. The new ecosystem partners Toshiba Corporation, Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd., and Tokuda Lab, Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus commented on the launch of the Tokyo center.

Shigeyoshi Shimotsuji, Corporate Vice President, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Executive, Cloud & Solutions Company, Toshiba Corporation

“Toshiba is working to generate new values by connecting energy, healthcare, and storage products and services by using cloud computing and big data technologies, with the aim of realizing a safe, secure, and comfortable Human Smart Community. By combining cloud technology with IoT, M2M, and edge computing, we will apply Human Smart Community to a broader range of devices, expanding it to manufacturing systems, traffic/transport systems, and Smart Cities.”

Prof. Hideyuki Tokuda, Keio University

“At Keio, we have many IoT, M2M, Cloud and Big Data related projects and are working on the ClouT project that realizes smart cities based on the fusion of IoT and Cloud computing.  We strongly believe that the IoE Innovation Center Tokyo will have a key role to make connected communities smarter with open and innovative collaboration among various members.”

Masaki Saito, President & CEO, MITSUI KNOWLEDGE INDUSTRY CO., LTD.

“MKI sincerely welcomes Cisco G.K.’s launch of the IoE Innovation Center Tokyo. While people, things, and processes are generating an ever-increasing amount of data, most of this data has never been utilized. At the same time, there is a growing need for real-time management and tracking, sometimes as a key factor for making decisions. MKI will work with Cisco G.K. to promote initiatives to realize intelligent edge computing utilizing this Innovation Center.”

Wim Elfrink, Executive Vice President of Industry Solutions and Chief Globalisation Officer, Cisco

“The Internet of Everything can generate $19 trillion of economic value globally over the next ten years, including $870 billion in Japan alone. Innovation will play a key role in the digitization of industry and society, and Tokyo is an ideal location for our newest center (Center of Innovation) because of its long history of leadership in technology and manufacturing leadership. We are excited to have new ecosystem partners in this endeavor such as Toshiba, Keio University, Tokuda Lab and MKI.”

Related resource

http://www.internetofeverything.com

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