Edge Computing Officially Entered the 2.0 Stage

Operator MES shine ECIS 2020

At the just concluded 2020 edge computing industry summit, three major white papers were released, including white paper 2.0 on collaboration between edge computing and cloud computing, white paper on industrial Internet edge computing network in 5g era and white paper 1.0 on industrial Internet edge computing nodes.

At the summit, China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom respectively expounded their progress and exploration in the field of edge computing. At the same time, China Telecom and China Mobile also jointly demonstrated industrial innovative applications and solutions with Huawei, covering smart city, intelligent transportation, industrial manufacturing, OPC UA over TSN and other fields.

On September 15, 2020, the edge computing industry alliance (ECC) and the industrial Internet industry alliance jointly launched the selection of "top ten solutions for edge computing in 2020". The top ten solutions were released and presented at the summit. Among the top ten solutions, four solutions involving operators are: China Mobile Research Institute's "smart port solution for 5g edge computing", China Telecom's Ma'anshan branch's "5g MEC driverless mine car project of Baoshan Iron and steel Nanshan Mine", China Unicom's "MEC edge cloud business operation management platform" and Zhejiang mobile "Low latency solution based on 5g blockchain technology edge computing". In addition, the awarding ceremony of the first batch of four edge computing joint innovation laboratories was grandly held on site, including ECC & China Unicom: 5g Zhilian edge computing joint innovation laboratory; ECC & China Telecom: edge computing joint innovation laboratory.

The above performance reflects the advantages and achievements of operators in the field of edge computing.

Edge calculation enters phase 2.0

Liu Shaowei, vice president of edge computing industry alliance, once said that edge computing has entered the stage of 2.0 from 1.0. The so-called edge computing 2.0 is defined by ECC as three landing forms: cloud edge, edge cloud and cloud gateway, and "edge cloud collaboration" and "edge intelligence" It is the development direction of core competence; the software platform needs to consider importing cloud concept, Cloud Architecture and cloud technology to provide end-to-end real-time, collaborative intelligence, reliability and dynamic reset; the hardware platform needs to consider heterogeneous computing capabilities, such as arm, x86, GPU, NPU, FPGA, etc.

Edge computing is a huge incremental market, and to B and to C are areas where edge computing can be significantly enabled. China Academy of communications and communications predicts that the scale of edge market will exceed trillion in the future, which is expected to become an emerging market equal to cloud computing.

Operators strive for edge computing and seize opportunities

The three camps are promoting the development of edge computing, including it Internet enterprises (cloud computing service providers, CDN manufacturers, etc.), OT industrial enterprises, CT basic telecom enterprises (communication operators and equipment manufacturers). The two technical routes of "5g MEC" and "cloud derived edge computing" are accelerating the competition and cooperation. At the "2020 edge computing industry summit" Cao Jiguang, deputy director of the Institute of technology and standards of China Academy of information and communications, said.

There is no doubt that 5g needs edge computing (MEC). Operators deploy MEC networks for different application scenarios, provide MEC basic services, and play the role of integrator in the process of integrating partners or startups' products. This is also the reason why partners need to work together with operators and technology enterprises such as Huawei and ZTE in the implementation of edge computing.

For example, Beijing Telecom and Huawei, together with Sany Heavy Industry, made a breakthrough in 5g MEC edge cloud business. On November 27, 2020, they officially opened the country's first smart factory business network based on 5g MEC cloud network integration, that is, based on the intelligent needs of Sany Heavy Industry Nankou Park, Huawei assisted Beijing Telecom to build 5g MEC edge cloud 5g customized network neighbor mode for Sany Heavy Industry. Through 5g cloud AI capabilities, meet the needs of machine vision, AGV and other scenarios, build an all cloud and digital chemical plant that can be flexibly deployed, ubiquitous access and intelligent analysis, and jointly formulate 5g intelligent manufacturing industry standards on the basis of practice.

For another example, on November 19, State Grid Xinjiang electric power and China Unicom Xinjiang Branch completed MEC equipment installation at ± 1100 kV Changji converter station, and officially launched the first 5g MEC application project in Xinjiang energy industry; on November 22, Zhejiang Mobile and China Mobile Communication Group Design Institute joined hands with Huawei to complete the deployment of the country's first 5g MEC on-board emergency communication network, and successfully completed the 2020 Hangzhou ma The success of the project indicates that 5g MEC on-board emergency communication network has the necessary conditions for large-scale deployment.