Platforms

TELUS partners with Google Cloud and NXN Digital to make Canadian cities safer, greener, and smarter

TELUS | February 10, 2022

TELUS is partnering with Google Cloud and NXN Digital to deliver the next-generation of sustainable, efficient, secure, and innovative Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that will empower businesses, communities, and their residents through a vast ecosystem of people-first solutions. This strategic alignment is combining the strength and speed of TELUS’ leading networks with Google Cloud’s infrastructure and data analytics, and NXN Digital’s “smart city as a service” platform, to enable cities and districts of any size to improve the lives of their citizens. From dynamic traffic signaling that reduces congestion and emissions, to data analytics that create smarter, more efficient city planning, the three organizations are transforming the way municipalities operate in our increasingly digital world.

“Today, we are celebrating the one-year anniversary of our 10-year partnership with Google Cloud as well as our strategic collaboration with NXN Digital by accelerating our commitment to Canadian cities and empowering them with the next-generation infrastructure and smart city technologies they need to optimize operations, improve resident safety, reduce costs, and create a more sustainable, healthier future,” said Tony Geheran, Executive Vice-president and Chief Operations Officer, TELUS. “By leveraging our strategic partnerships along with the blazing speed, reliability, and lower latency of our global-leading 5G network, we are creating remarkable outcomes for Canadians.”

Combining the strength of Google Cloud and NXN Digital’s twin technology enables TELUS to deliver a wide range of smart solutions through a seamless, end-to-end experience, ensuring full interoperability between IoT sensors, management platform, and cloud infrastructure, all powered by TELUS’ global-leading connectivity.

“We are building on our strategic alliance with TELUS to help create more sustainable and efficient cities by leveraging scalability, reliability, and intelligence of our cloud,” said Amol Phadke, Managing Director, Telecom Industry Solutions, Google Cloud. “We look forward to continuing our co-innovation journey with TELUS and to supporting the digital transformation of Canadian cities through data, 5G, and Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC).”

“We are proud to partner with TELUS to provide data intelligence, geospatial information, and digital twin capabilities through leading cloud and network infrastructure allowing municipalities to make better, more informed decisions,” said Ghazi Atallah, CEO of NXN Digital. “Our smart digital services integration and delivery platform provide the agility districts, municipalities, and urban centers need to rapidly adopt future technologies and break down data silos through one cohesive platform that seamlessly connects all systems, IoT technologies, and data sources together. Our hub of innovation is actively building the cities of the future, improving their efficiency, competitiveness, and quality of life.”

Smarter solutions to build a healthier, safer, greener city

“Our smart city solutions and award-winning networks are transforming the way municipalities operate, enabling them to make impactful data-driven decisions, save energy, improve emergency response times and safety in the community, or monitor traffic for operational efficiency. By partnering with proven leaders, we’re excited to expand the capabilities of our technology in urban and rural communities through projects that make communities and businesses more efficient, productive and safe.”

Navin Arora, Executive Vice-president, TELUS and President, TELUS Business Solutions

TELUS smart city solutions fall within four foundational pillars:
  • Infrastructure and environmental sustainability: Enhancing the way a municipality operates improves quality of life for citizens and contributes to municipalities’ sustainability goals. These smart city solutions include connected lighting, energy management, environmental monitoring, road quality management, and smart waste.
  • Intelligent transportation: Sensors, cameras, and other devices that are built into or near roads, sidewalks, and bike paths, that provide data for innovative software to improve traffic flow in real-time. This data also helps to better inform decisions around infrastructure and city planning, fleet optimization, and economic drivers like tourism hot spots.
  • Public safety and security: Smart city solutions that contribute to public safety and security include advanced video systems that provide not only on-premise security, but video and data analytics. Crucially, these systems aid in emergency response and event management scenarios, allowing for faster response times and better public safety outcomes. Solutions include mission critical communications and connected worker solutions that improve the safety of remote and hybrid workers.
  • Health: Smart devices and virtual healthcare reduce the burden on our health system by enabling seamless processes and execution, making healthcare more accessible and empowering health professionals with tools that let them focus on what they do best: caring for patients. For example, wearables can connect emergency medical technicians with physicians through a secure network as if they were in the ambulance in person.
About TELUS
TELUS is a dynamic, world-leading communications technology company with $16 billion in annual revenue and 16 million customer connections spanning wireless, data, IP, voice, television, entertainment, video, and security. We leverage our global-leading technology and compassion to enable remarkable human outcomes. Our longstanding commitment to putting our customers first fuels every aspect of our business, making us a distinct leader in customer service excellence and loyalty. In 2020, TELUS was recognized as having the fastest wireless network in the world, reinforcing our commitment to provide Canadians with access to superior technology that connects us to the people, resources and information that make our lives better. TELUS Health is Canada’s leader in digital health technology, improving access to health and wellness services and revolutionizing the flow of health information across the continuum of care. TELUS Agriculture provides innovative digital solutions throughout the agriculture value chain, supporting better food outcomes from improved agri-business data insights and processes. TELUS International (TSX and NYSE: TIXT) is a leading digital customer experience innovator that delivers next-generation AI and content management solutions for global brands across the technology and games, ecommerce and FinTech, communications and media, healthcare, travel and hospitality sectors. TELUS and TELUS International operate in 25+ countries around the world. Together, let’s make the future friendly.

Driven by our passionate social purpose to connect all citizens for good, our deeply meaningful and enduring philosophy to give where we live has inspired TELUS, our team members and retirees to contribute more than $820 million and 1.6 million days of service since 2000. This unprecedented generosity and unparalleled volunteerism have made TELUS the most giving company in the world.

Spotlight

IDC’s research demonstrates that enterprise organizations are prioritizing digital infrastructure (DX) resiliency as a foundational element of their IT strategy. Organizations are looking for richer levels of visibility, cross-platform control, advanced data management, and protection that spans the entire ecosystem, including public or private cloud, on premises, colocation facility, and edge. DX initiatives rely on data-driven insights to deliver competitive differentiation, increased customer engagement, streamlined business operations, increased staff productivity, and growth in revenue and profitability. IT infrastructure is one of the crucial pillars of DX. In fact, DX cannot succeed without IT transformation, aligned with business strategy to meet or exceed service-level objectives for data-driven insights. Because of this realization, organizations are now focused on managing outcomes instead of IT infrastructure and looking to vendors and partners to help reach this goal.

Spotlight

IDC’s research demonstrates that enterprise organizations are prioritizing digital infrastructure (DX) resiliency as a foundational element of their IT strategy. Organizations are looking for richer levels of visibility, cross-platform control, advanced data management, and protection that spans the entire ecosystem, including public or private cloud, on premises, colocation facility, and edge. DX initiatives rely on data-driven insights to deliver competitive differentiation, increased customer engagement, streamlined business operations, increased staff productivity, and growth in revenue and profitability. IT infrastructure is one of the crucial pillars of DX. In fact, DX cannot succeed without IT transformation, aligned with business strategy to meet or exceed service-level objectives for data-driven insights. Because of this realization, organizations are now focused on managing outcomes instead of IT infrastructure and looking to vendors and partners to help reach this goal.

Related News

Enterprise Iot

BMW Partners AWS and Qualcomm to Drive Innovation in New-Gen Autos

BMW | September 07, 2023

BMW partners with AWS and Qualcomm to foster driving experiences Snapdragon Ride to be used to integrate AI-augmented video function The collaboration leverages AWS’s cloud-based compute and storage along with IoT sensing tools, generative AI and machine learning BMW has joined Amazon Web Services for a cloud partnership to propel IoT and AI capabilities into upcoming vehicle models set for a 2025 launch, augmented onboard ASAS software and sensors for driver warnings. Concurrently, BMW collaborated with Qualcomm Technologies to develop automated driving systems built on Qualcomm's Snapdragon Ride computer vision platform. BMW's collaboration with AWS and Qualcomm aims to streamline production and enhance vehicle functions. BMW stated that centralized cloud computing enables scalability to handle increasing data volumes generated by advanced automated functions like adaptive cruise control and automated lane changing. BMW's partnership with AWS and Qualcomm is geared towards optimizing production processes and elevating the capabilities of their vehicles. According to BMW, the utilization of centralized cloud computing allows for greater scalability, effectively managing the surging volumes of data generated by sophisticated automated features such as adaptive cruise control and automated lane changing. This enhances the efficiency of manufacturing operations and empowers vehicles to deliver more robust and responsive automated driving experiences.The integration of cloud computing addresses the challenges posed by increasing data demands, laying the foundation for future innovations in connected and autonomous vehicles. This collaboration leverages an existing ‘cloud data hub’ on AWS infrastructure, tapping into cloud-based computing, IoT sensing, storage, and AI tools, which include generative AI and machine learning. BMW reported that these technologies will enhance BMW's Neue Klasse line, enabling lifecycle management of the new driver assistance (ADAS) platform, automated braking, and steering functions. These Neue Klasse vehicles from 2025 will allow BMW engineers to respond swiftly to customer demands and introduce new features to enhance the automated driving experience. The Snapdragon Ride platform will integrate 360-degree AI-augmented video functionality for automated driving features. Nicolai Martin, Senior Vice President for driving experience at BMW, mentioned, In the next decade, consumer habits and expectations will drive more changes in the automotive industry than we’ve seen over the past 30 years. [Source: RCRWirelessNews] BMW's new driving platform will serve as a reference architecture for future BMW models, enabling the processing, cataloging, and storage of vast amounts of real-time driving data in AWS's Amazon S3 cloud storage engines. This data will support engineering teams in developing and training models using AWS's machine learning service, ‘SageMaker.’ General Manager of automotive and manufacturing, Wendy Bauer at AWS, stated, Automated driving is about more than just convenience; it’s also aimed at providing driver assistance technology that helps prevent injuries and saves lives. [Source: RCRWirelessNews] Wendy Bauer explained that implementing these systems on the BMW Group's international scale required an approach that could process and analyze vast amounts of data, as well as learn and innovate, so automakers could develop safer and more reliable automated ADAS systems. As the automotive industry undergoes a transformation towards a novel software-defined vehicle architecture that emphasizes high performance, energy efficiency, and scalability, Nakul Duggal, Senior Vice President for automotive and cloud computing at Qualcomm, said that its ongoing collaboration with BMW is dedicated to the development of advanced AI-driven driver assistance technologies, focusing on safety and security on a larger scale. He added that this partnership between AWS and BMW combines cutting-edge technology from their respective industries, aiming to provide a contemporary cloud-native software development ecosystem.

Read More

Enterprise Iot

Intel’s AI PC Neural Processor, Transforming AI Accessibility

Intel | September 20, 2023

Intel is turning software into a new revenue-generating business division, based primarily on the AI obsession. Intel is the first to bring a true AI accelerator to a PC with Meteor Lake. Intel Xeon processors of the fifth generation will also debut on December 14. Next year, the Sierra Forest E-core processor will be available with 288 cores. Intel has revealed plans to launch an AI PC, set to be released on December 14, featuring Intel Core Ultra processors with a Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The new processors, codenamed Meteor Lake, will include Intel's NPU for AI acceleration and local inference on the PC, representing an inflection point in client processing. The move is part of Intel's effort to compete with Nvidia and expand its presence in the AI space across various compute needs. CEO of Intel, Pat Gelsinger, noted ‘AI Everywhere' in a keynote address, surprising some who haven't been paying attention with a December 14 launch date for the AI PC running Intel Core Ultra processors with a comparatively new acronym, NPU, for Neural Processing Unit. In July, he first described the upcoming AI PC era. The AI PC is expected to launch worldwide, with Acer already planning to unveil a laptop powered by the Core Ultra processor. Intel's AI PC represents a significant development, as it brings a true AI accelerator to a PC. This allows for generative AI tasks to be performed locally, faster, and with higher levels of privacy and security. The AI PC is expected to play a crucial role in supporting AI workloads on local devices, such as PCs, mobile devices, and edge devices. Analyst at J. Gold Associates, Jack Gold, stated, The significance of AI on a PC is not to be overlooked, this is a big deal. Intel is the first to bring a true AI accelerator to a PC with Meteor Lake. Microsoft is even adding capabilities in next-gen Windows to access the NPU. [Source: Fierce Electronics] Local processing power becomes crucial as AI workloads increasingly run on local devices. This shift reduces the need to transfer data to the cloud, improving efficiency and reducing latency. It aims to leverage AI to transform the PC experience, emphasizing the synergy between cloud and PC. This will allow for personal productivity and creativity enhancements. Intel's Core Ultra processors will include Fovoros packaging, combining the NPU, Intel 4 process technology, and graphics capabilities with Intel Arc graphics.

Read More

Enterprise Iot, Industrial IoT, Platforms

GlobalSign Announces Two New ABI Research IoT White Papers

Accesswire | July 06, 2023

GMO GlobalSign Inc., a global Certificate Authority (CA) and leading provider of identity security, digital signing and IoT solutions today announced the availability of two new white papers. Written in collaboration with ABI Research, the white papers "Smart Home IoT Devices Require Secure Network Architecture" and "Securing the Industrial IoT Market" can now be downloaded from our website. A white paper by ABI Research Director Michela Menting, "Securing the Industrial IoT Market" discusses how this market is undergoing a transformation using new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, digital twins and robotics, leading to a booming growth of Industrial IoT (IIoT) technologies. The paper also identifies the primary Internet networking approaches expected for industrial settings, and also lays out primary connectivity needs in the top industrial markets. The paper concludes by recommending Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) as a critical technology for securing the industrial Internet and its benefits for industrial organizations. A free copy of the paper can be found here. In addition, a white paper by ABI Research's Research Director Jonathon Collins, "Smart Home IoT Devices Require Secure Network Architecture," discusses the many facets of smart homes, delving into subjects such as energy management, physical security, healthcare, home appliances as well as smart home network architectures. The paper also focuses on the need for companies to leverage digital certificates to enable a wide variety of security capabilities. Information is also shared regarding authentication and access control, privacy and confidentiality and integrity. Click here to obtain a free copy of this paper. "Digital certificates are well-suited for securing the identity of IoT devices, since the technology behind certificates, Public Key Infrastructure, allows for increased visibility of smart home devices and their connectivity to external assets and applications," said Martin Lowry, IoT Product Manager, GlobalSign. "For a secure industrial Internet, companies need to consider that identities for millions of industrial devices is necessary. With unique identities, operators can build security policies starting with authentication and access control, and then extend to monitoring, threat detection, and lifecycle management. Whether you are dealing with a smart home device offering, or an IIoT project, PKI forms the core of device identity, allowing for product differentiation, increased visibility, fraud prevention and attack reduction." About GMO GlobalSign As one of the world's most deeply-rooted certificate authorities, GMO GlobalSign is the leading provider of trusted identity and security solutions enabling businesses, large enterprises, cloud-based service providers, and IoT innovators worldwide to conduct secure online communications, manage millions of verified digital identities and automate authentication and encryption. Its high-scale Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and identity solutions support the billions of services, devices, people, and things comprising the IoT. GMO GlobalSign is a subsidiary of GMO GlobalSign Holdings, Inc, a member of the Japan-based GMO Internet Group, has offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit https://www.globalsign.com.

Read More