A long-term partnership agreement between British semiconductor and software design company Arm and Chinese telecoms operator China Unicom is eyeing to expand internet of things (IoT) offerings in China.
The collaboration covers joint offerings for Chinese enterprises and global companies looking to have a local presence in China.
These include solutions using Arm’s Pelion Device Management and Mbed OS and China Unicom’s new IoT platform and device and application ecosystem.
Chen Xiaotian, General Manager of China Unicom IoT Limited, said in a news release that the partnership will build the whole IoT ecosystem together.
The China Unicom IoT Platform connects 100 million devices across China. By building on top of Arm's Pelion Device Management service that can manage any device type, the platform can offer device-to-data security and device management.
Chinese enterprises and foreign companies operating in China will then be able to easily deploy and manage IoT applications at scale across verticals, including smart utility, smart cities, smart logistics and more.
“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, IoT Services Group, Arm.
Arm’s Pelion Device Management allows organizations to onboard, manage and update various types of IoT devices (from ultra-constrained to large gateways), throughout the device lifecycle.
Mbed OS, meanwhile, integrates all the essential components and mainstream standards necessary in the IoT.
Arm said the next release of Mbed OS (March 2019) will be one of the first IoT OS’s to have out-of-the-box compliance with PSA Certified Level 1 and PSA functional API Certification with support for multiple semiconductor vendor hardware, including Cypress, Nuvoton, NXP Semiconductors and ST.
“The IoT market in China continues to grow at a rapid pace, with cellular IoT connections growing from 560 million in 2018 to 1.5 billion by 2022,” said Sam Lucero, senior principal analyst, IoT, IHS Markit.
“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,” he added.
